Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's because I needed space that this happened.

Humans can only get pushed so much. Plenty of people in Konoha don't consider me human, and plenty others who do can't acknowledge that I would have some sort of limit, some sort of breaking point. They think it was crossed long ago, when my own brother killed my entire clan and tortured me with the memory until I was a wreck of bone, blood, and rage. They think someone who has lived through my experiences has touched the burning brimstone of Hell: there's no lower I can get, so it would take another brother massacring another entire clan for me to, once again, reach my breaking point.

But Konoha has, and Konoha will. When you put yourself into the system and deal with the stupidity of the common man who hasn't trained a day in his life, who couldn't tell you the difference between D-Rank and B-Rank missions, who couldn't even name a kunai even if it was thrusted into his face — an untrained, unknowing, pathetic man who somehow has the gall, the egotism to think he should have a word in the world of shinobi — it all gets irritating very quickly.  And when you, who has had your highs and lows, who hasn't always been on the side of Konoha but grew up a ninja and has lived a ninja and will probably die a ninja, has to deal, day-after-day, with that man, even you would be pulled to the end of your rope by a week.

For me, it's been four months, and I have the curse of Uchiha genes: a short patience, an even shorter tolerance of negligence and utter stupidity. I wake up in the morning to work for a government that is homed in a village that killed off my family. I meet with the Barrier Division's leader, who complains about the outdated, old walls and how the wear-and-tear of the Main Gate is causing issues with security and safety. Then, the Military Police Force's head stomps in, clothed in his uniform, the print on the sleeve and back of his vest missing my clan's fan — something I always note, something that always irks me. He barks about the rising crime rates around the walls: "The people are scared," he says. "Those walls are no good. War tore 'em up. Barrier is screeching about it, and the citizens hear it. They try to move to the center, and that leaves abandoned homes, and abandoned homes birth crime." The entire Security Department calls for better walls and more, better gates. So I meet with the Financial Division, and they say there's no money; and I meet with the Construction Division, and they say all material is going into rebuilding hospitals and homes. So I meet with Finance again, and I tell them to get the money, and they say there isn't any, and they say that I should call up Research or Intelligence or Communication to see if they can survive with loaning out a bit to Security — as if it's my damn job — as if I got "Head of Financial Division" stamped right next to "Creator of Miracles". And all the while, the common man is passively reading in his office, and when I present the issues to him and the rest of the Advisors, he just smiles, and he says to pull money out of the Reconnaissance Division. "We're not at war right now," he says. "Who could we be interrogating? Who do we need to search and retrieve?" Like an idiot. Like a fucking moron.

No ninja background. No understanding of the system.

And I have a limit. A deep limit, hard to find, but a limit nonetheless.

And if I don't get away, I will destroy. I will take that book away from the common man in his tidy office and smash his teeth out of his simpering, pathetic mouth.

So I get away. So I have been getting away. And that's where it starts — where she and I share the same space, the same air, the same smell of old paper and aged ink and leather and the clean, light, citrus scent of carpet cleaner and all-surface spray.

The Village Library (there are many libraries in Konoha — perhaps thirty, give or take a handful — but only one with a commanding and matter-of-fact name like The Village Library) sits comfortably in the middle of my commute from work and the half-standing remains of the Uchiha Estate. The library, itself, is impressive if your thing is how many books can be crammed into one building, but what is significant to me about this specific place is the basement, where The Archive tucks itself away from the noise upstairs. They say The Village Library can get up to seven-hundred visitors a day; more than one-thousand on weekends. But as visitors comb through the shelves and huddle at public tables and check-out tapes and glossy-covered books and local newspapers, The Archive homes its own, unique atmosphere.

Friday afternoons, when I escape work and the annoyances that follow it, I take a turn into the library, grab a local newspaper from the stack by the door, take the staircase down, follow a simple hallway to the only door on the right, and enter The Archive. The shelves here are wooden and antique, but not a crumbling old. They line the walls and split the room into thirds, small signs hanging from the ceiling to indicate sections. I wander with ease into the section named Konoha Shinobi, find the spot in the shelf where I had left off, remove a few files, and maneuver back to the front of the room, where cushioned seats and small, round tables circle each other. I sit in my usual spot, in a corner next to Konoha Clans, drop the files onto the round table next to my left arm rest, unfold the newspaper, and sigh.

The Archive hardly gets a visitor, and when it does, they dip in quietly, and they meander some. A few stay and sit and read. Most leave after a glance around — and that's why I come here. This is where I get away, where I relax and read and forget about my heated need to smash in the teeth of some of my fellow Advisors.

It's five after four in the afternoon, and this is where I always am, every Friday, and it's quiet, and I'm unbothered, and it's as close to perfection as you can find in Konoha.

______

History Girl makes a knot in my normal, Friday afternoon schedule.

It's not something I take special time and care in noticing. If it weren't for repetition, she would be another, blank face — another stray body that comes in and sits and reads a little. Nothing that would be entertaining enough to make me look away from my reading material. Nothing that would make her face burn into my memory for a prolonged span of time. She comes, she goes, and that's it.

But that isn't it.

Every Friday, at 4:00, I come, I grab the paper, I search the files, and I sit and read until 7:00 comes and I peel out of the chair and return the files to the shelf and grab a bite on my way home to sleep and waste the weekend away. Every Friday, at 4:25, History Girl slips into the room, disappears for only a moment into the Konoha History section of The Archive, and curls into the chair by the door, where she sits, hardly moving, never talking, until it's 6:45 and she's off into the not-Archive; into the 'rest-of-the-world', as it were. And I only notice because this has been the norm for the past twelve Fridays, and you're bound to notice another body in this small, quiet space coming every Friday for twelve weeks — especially if you're a shinobi; especially if you've grown and trained with the ability to notice and observe quickly and subtly, without much effort.

The only thing that stands out to me, that really registers with me, about History Girl is the eyes. Peculiar and white, almost like the film over the blank, still gaze of a dead animal. At one point in those twelve Fridays, I wondered for a second if she was blind, then dismissed it as immediately as the thought came. A blind girl wouldn't spend her Fridays here. And even if one would, it isn't my business. It's the people I come here to avoid. History Girl keeps to herself and stays quiet and doesn't bother me, and I'm not about to compromise that.

______

It's the first Friday of August. The elders of the neighborhood write in their newspaper that the last days of summer will leave ferociously, without conceding. As temperatures rise to 38 C, they remind readers the common and traditional practices of avoiding heat stroke. Keep water on you. Stop in air-conditioned shops if you're taking walks. Wear light-colored clothes and wide-brimmed hats. I skim the section for the sake of finishing it, flip over to the next page, and skim what they have to say about locals and local businesses before my eye dips to the Sudoku puzzle in the corner. This group of elders must have a knack for it, for they add a new one in every Friday Issue. The Tuesday Issue has crosswords, but the Friday one is sectioned off into three different levels, and my pen aims for the last — the "hardest" one, as they advertise.

Half my mind on Sudoku, the other turns to one of the files waiting for me on the table. I pause after jotting down a few numbers in the upper section of the puzzle, bring the file onto my lap, open it, and begin to read the content inside. This file lists and delves into unique ninjutsu Konoha Nin have developed since the start of the village. Half of it is something I could never pull off — not because I'm outclassed or under-skilled, but more because it's out of my element. It's a unique ability to an individual and that individual's traits and elements and set of skills and clan. It's far beyond me, but I read, and I store it in my memory — because Konoha is the heart of the Shinobi World, in some ways. We send our kind out, and they interact, and they come back with a little bit of the people they met, and those nin have a little bit of us with them. It's likely that I will meet an enemy shinobi one day with a specific ninjutsu that their great-grandfather had learned and adapted from a Konoha shinobi decades ago. It could be one of these.

For a while, I go between ninjutsu and Sudoku, flipping to one when my mind has to take in the other. The room is quiet. The lights flicker dimly above my head. Their buzz is muffled when the door opens, and my gaze flashes to the clock hanging on the wall. 4:25. Just in time.

History Girl creeps into the Archive. I see a flash of cream before she disappears into the shelves. Perhaps she read the warnings of the elders in the paper. No hat, of course. How the grandmas would huff. I finish a line in Sudoku as she reappears, tucks herself in her corner, and grows still and tranquil as she dives into her readings. The history section is half-file, half-old-book. The one she has is thin-spined and ancient. I can't make out the title, nor do I wish to. Ninjutsu pulls me back in, and we settle into the quiet like it's any other Friday.

But then the door opens, and this time, it's a herd of custodians, hair twisted into buns, striking blue, rubber aprons tied to their fronts. They pull in brooms and spray and dusters. The final lady that comes in brings a vacuum, but she stops at the door upon sighting History Girl, then me, and leaves the device to stand by the frame. It's impossible that time has passed so quickly, but I look to the clock anyway and confirm, indeed, no more than forty minutes have passed. The janitors don't sweep through until the library closes at 7:30. I usually pass them in the hallway as I leave. They hit The Archive first, seeing as I'm usually the last to be inside. The sight of them here, early and off schedule, makes me scowl, and the one with the vacuum smiles nervously at her coworkers.

"Excuse us," she says, loud enough to get History Girl's attention. Her head snaps up, and her strange, white-film eyes expand at the small crowd of janitors by her seat. "We've come to clean early. Storm comin' through tonight is a monster, so they lettin' us cleaning girls off early. Oh, don't worry, you can stay. We'll be quick 'n quiet and gone before you know it." Her wide, nervous smile turns to the girl. "Ma'am."

A quiet, inquisitive hum leaves History Girl.

"Could we ask you to move?" another janitor asks. "Just temporarily."

Lifting gracefully, she moves to a different gathering of chairs in the center of the room.

"What we mean," says the janitor, gaze turning to me, "is if you could both stay in the same area. Just for now."

History Girl directs her gaze over to my corner. My scowl does not hide for her sake. It's not her issue, of course, but I won't hide my displeasure. I get three hours a week to get away and find some ounce of peace. Having those three hours cut in half because of some storm, because a flock of custodians can't survive a measly Konoha storm, is not pleasant, is not wanted, and is not something I will simply regard with a shrug and a sigh. I let my displeasure boil, and the girl cringes, crinkles her eyes, and presses her old, thin-spined book to her chest as she tip-toes over, as if it were a shield to protect her from my disdain.

Her small feet touch the back foot of the chair across from me. When she stands before me, I notice her smallness. It irks a nerve in my jaw, and I grit my teeth.

"I'm sorry," she says. These are the first words she's ever said to me. They are small like her and quiet like her — warm like the red embarrassment on her face. They are light like yellow paper from ancient books, feeble against the slight blow of air-conditioned air in the room. Her shoulders hunker inward, and her eyes stay on the floor between us. "Would you mind?"

And a spiteful line of words collect on my tongue. ‘ Yes. Go away. You're bothering me.’ And then I'd like to turn to those cowering janitors and spit, with more wrath on my tongue: ‘ This is hardly professional. If you fear a meager storm that much, then leave. Quit. Move to Sunagakure. Never step into society again.’ And then I think, perhaps, this anger of mine is better directed to them than History Girl. She is as much in this mess as I am. If the roles were reversed and I sat in the chair by the door and that long-mouthed janitor batted her lashes at me and said "sir, could you please?" and directed me to this corner where History Girl sat, feet tucked in, eyes glued to the words, still unaware to the world around her . . . .

Well.

I would not tuck my tail in and obey.

But I am also someone who directs his rage at the right people. Itachi, then Konoha. The simpering common man. The department and division heads who don't know how to do their own job. That block-headed Military Police Chief who can't see the irony of reporting to an Uchiha.

In this instance . . . History Girl does not deserve my rage, and the mean cut of words I have die in my mouth. I grunt, and she hesitates, bends, and sits on the edge of her cushioned seat.

The custodians sigh quietly. The one leaves the vacuum in the hallway, and they hurry through The Archive.

History Girl fingers the corner of a page, opens, and slowly delves back into the words. I twist my fingers into my pen and bore my eyes into the middle crease of my file. Ink blots the puzzle. I don't care.

______

The janitors half-lied. They are quiet, but not as quick as they promised. The dusting and sweeping is white noise like the faint buzz of the lights overhead, and they don't gossip or pass the time with chatter or song. They work quietly, but not rapidly. Not with the speed one would expect from a flock that has interrupted the much appreciated, much loved patrons of the library. It's an annoyance, of course, that weighs on my chest, and it lifts slowly as the clock ticks and the puzzle comes closer and closer to finishing and I hop from one file to the other.

When they finish, they bow in apologies and skitter out of the room.

Sudoku is finished, and I have most of my focus on ninjutsu. The door shuts, I check the time — 6:35 — and only then do I remember History Girl sitting across from me, so deep into her reading that she's stuck, once again, in that still and silent manner that made me all but forget her. She has ten minutes before she usually leaves, but I don't bother her to return to her seat. She makes no sound, and part of me wants to find a reason to force her to leave, but the other part knows there's no reason. She's not a bother. She hardly even exists.

I'm almost finished with the third file when the hands of the clock turn into place. Her eyes blink, and she tilts her head to look over her shoulders, sees the time, and scampers to her feet. Swiftly, she returns her book to the right spot on the shelf, not saying a word until she comes back to the chair across from me, her fingers gripping the back slope.

"Thank you very much," she whispers, smiling shyly, that warm red still on her face.

And she leaves the way she always does, and for the next quarter of an hour, I sit in my spot, and I read some, and I stare some — stare at nothing at all. At the crease, the Archive, the door, the clock. At most things that aren't those two chairs where History Girl situates herself, coiling, as unmoving as a statue.

______

It was a strangeness that didn't touch my mind past Monday. Not even strangeness, but a mere change in routine, a diversion from loyally-followed schedule, a speck of variety in the normalcy of Friday afternoons. History Girl was a humming memory during the weekend, and then nothing at all at the start of the new week. I was quickly submerged into the trials of Konoha. The gate is rusting. The walls by it might collapse (apparently, aged, war-scarred walls and heavy rain from Friday's storm is not a good combination). Finance still has no expendable money, so I do what Uchihas do best and scare the useless shit out of them, threatening to go straight to the Hokage if they don't get me a plan by Tuesday morning.

Some pleasure comes Tuesday when I come to my office and find a folder on my desk with a detailed plan on how to get the amount needed to replace and rebuild Konoha's aging security. One less thing to nag Kakashi about, I guess. But, quickly, Tuesday turns sour when I get ambushed again and again by Communication and Academic and Logistics, asking about the cuts, whining about how they're just as important, complaining why they get money taken while Reconnaissance doesn't. "Who needs Infiltration right now?" they ask. "There's no more war!"

Wednesday, for lunch, Naruto drags me out for ramen. When I tell him about it, he laughs, and he shakes my shoulder.

"No war!" he scoffs, grinning, watching with eager eyes as his fourth bowl of ramen is being made. "Do they think war is the only time a shinobi is needed?"

"They don't know anything," I mutter. "They don't know a thing about us."

But he keeps smiling, and I wonder for the thousandth time why he wants to be Hokage, why he wants to willingly be a part of that life, that annoyance.

When Friday comes, I read about the Hokages of past. It's a file further down the shelf, but being around Naruto too much this week got them on my mind, so I divulge. I'm allowed even that, especially on Fridays, especially when this is my only moment in a week where I get to do what I want, what calms me, what makes my life a little less hellish to get through.

I'm already partly through the Sudoku from today's issue when History Girl comes. I'm a bit pensive, at first; worried the change of routine from last week would poison her mind. She might mistaken my silence for acceptance and decide that empty chair across from me is hers for the taking. In a way, I suppose it could be. There's no rule stating she can't sit there aside from decent, common courtesy: when there's room, don't hog the space of another. There isn't a bone in my body that would shy away from biting her away. Uchihas are mean, and they don't hide it. I'm the last one left, so I'm obliged to hold the stereotype. If she tries, I'll tear her to pieces. The mercy my tongue had last week would be gone, dried up long before.

But she doesn't try.

She gets her book and sits in the chair by the door, and it's all normal. As if routine never diverted. As if last Friday never happened.

I'm relieved, and I go back to my reading and puzzle, and we fall into a type of Friday I'm used to, that I welcome.

______

And Fridays, I think, will continue like that.

Until the last one of August. The elders in the paper still woe about the heat. They prattle about a helpful neighbor watering the local gardens when everyone else stays inside, trying to stay cool and out of the sun. They muse about a local cafe, and that's all I catch before the door opens and a crowd of ten or so children huddle in, an adult following behind, guiding them in, hushing them and telling them to line up by the shelves.

My cool temper turns sour. The library is often a hot spot for after-school gatherings. Sometimes, Academy students willingly come by to study or search through the collection of tapes that they'd like to bring home to watch. Usually, however, after-school care brings the younger ones by. It's a strange kind of "field trip" that seems useless to me. Bring children who just left school to an environment like this? It begs for trouble and bored brains, and that's what I'm seeing in the line of twitching children by the shelf. Their teacher does her best to hush them, and in a low, cool voice, she explains The Archive before guiding them further into the shelves. When she's not looking, children pull out files and return them to the wrong spots. I cringe, and I bite my tongue to keep it in place, and I try to focus on the puzzle.

What sort of teacher brings children here? I think bitterly.

4:25 comes. History Girl enters through the half-open crack of the door, and I watch the expanse of her eyes widen when she sees the children flooding the seats. The teacher sits on the floor between some of them, overlooking the files and books they have chosen to read. Many of the children flap their legs and kick and twitch, but they don't make too much noise, and they don't cause mess. Their presence, alone, is a disturbance enough, and the tightening nerves in my temples twist a notch more when History Girl hesitantly travels from door to history section, head turning to the only empty seat in the room: the one across from me.

Our eyes meet, and I scowl, and she disappears behind the shelves.

I open my first file, digging in, trying to ignore the breathing and kicking feet overtaking The Archive. I contemplate leaving, but routine is deep in my bones, wired into my body. It's not something that I can break with ease. I leave early, and my evening will be off — and my weekend will be off — and I'll start a new week of work in a worse mood than I usually am in. I might get to the point of actually smashing in the face of someone. Anyone.

"Um." My glare snaps up. History Girl hovers by the empty chair. Again, an old book presses to her torso. This one is thicker, leather dyed green. It makes the pink in her skin stand out more. "Would you, um — do you mind?"

Yes. I do. But, again, it's an annoyance she has not caused, and while I don't know anything about History Girl — don't care to, really — I get the impression that she's a creature of habit and routine like I am. Same time. Same spot. How many Fridays has it been now? Fourteen? Fifteen? If she leaves, her entire week might be off — and I don't care — and it doesn't concern me . . . .

But even I know when there should be a limit to my callousness.

I don't like it, but . . . .

My tongue sticks to the backs of my teeth, creating a sharp, clicking sound when it pulls away. History Girl hesitates again, fidgets, then offers a grateful smile as she sits into the chair once more. This time, she doesn't pause, curling up like she would in her own chair, opening the book to the first page and starting it with ease.

A part of me is almost jealous of her ability to adapt, to quickly leave the world and the people around her.

My gaze turns to the children, the teacher, and then back to the back of the newspaper, where a half-finished Sudoku waits for my pen.

Time slips by. The children leave. Her chair clears up, but History Girl doesn't notice, and I, hungry for some semblance of repetition, once again do not alarm her that she is free and able to return.

6:45 comes. She returns the book, smiles again in my direction, and tucks some hair out of her face when she gives a small bow.

"Thank you." She left it at that last time, but today, she adds, softly and warmly, "Have a good weekend."

______

Now History Girl is a murmur of a memory for the majority of the week. She creeps with me into the new week, and she doesn't leave. I slog through meetings, and I think about her in the corner, curled into a book. I update Kakashi about the walls and gate, about how Finance seems to have scrambled enough money to get the project started by mid-September, and there's something about the way he lifts from his seat, over towers of paperwork, that reminds me of History Girl. I go home, I smell the faint scent of floor cleaner, and I think of her, and I grit my teeth in mild annoyance and log off to shower.

The most irritating part about it was that I couldn't figure out what my mind was doing with it, with her. There are two parts of Uchiha Sasuke: the one in "the-rest-of-the-world", and the one "in-my-own-world". The latter is those three, quick hours in The Archive, doing Sudoku and reading decade-old essays on shinobi life in past Konoha. They weren't supposed to mix, and for all this time, they haven't. Until now. Until this week. Until I start going to work, and something as ordinary as a green book on the desk of the common man reminds me of History Girl.

And I'm realizing now that categorizing life in this sort of way shuffles History Girl under "in-my-own-world", and even the fact that I'm linking the two is annoying. She's not. She's someone who reads for a few hours in The Archive on Friday afternoons. She should be a faceless figure, but she isn't.

I know what she sounds like. I describe her eyes as "like the film over the eyes of a dead animal".

She's not nothing. Not a passing, unrecognizable person.

I don't know why, and come Friday, I'm waiting for her. I read a paragraph from the paper, check the clock, read another, check the clock again. She comes when she always does, and she looks at me, and I look back, and I feel myself frown. History Girl retrieves her book, and as she passes by, she stops, looks down at me, and smiles.

"Hello."

And I say the first words to her — the first words after sixteen Fridays shared together in this small space, reading, listening to the buzz, enjoying the quiet and the isolation.

"Sit."

It's a command. Not so much a suggestion. I don't know what I was aiming for, really, but that's what leaves me, and I have no reason to fix it. History Girl eyes the chair across from me, curious. Her thumbs press into the back cover of her book. Then, finally, she steps over, watches me (as if I'll revoke my offer at the last second), and sits.

It takes her a long while to curl her legs under her weight. It takes her even longer to dive into her book like she always does. I find myself reading a file, my peripheral aiming her way, searching for that normal, statue-like pose. The pulling away from everything. It doesn't come.

Not for a while.

"Thank you."

It's quiet, almost like white noise, like buzzing lights or dusters collecting dirt from the shelves.

My final gaze turns up towards her, and her face is flushed, and she's smiling to herself, and her eyes trail the words on the page carefully — never skimming, never skipping.

I turn to my own findings. I put down a few numbers. I flip a page.

I think, numbly, how I've just changed something, how I've just put a scratch in the routine.

And I'm surprised, above all, by how easy it was.

Chapter Text

Her hesitation turns smaller as the weeks pass. The command of my “Sit.” stalks into the following Friday. She stays in the history section for a while, and when the pale color of her blouse peeks at me between gaps in the files and books, I am sure, with little doubt in my mind, that she’s wondering if my invitation — if you can even call it that — to sit across from me was a one time occurrence or something that plays into the seemingly countless Fridays of the future. If it’s the latter, would she even want to sit there, with me? Not with me, of course, but within this bubble of mine, in a circumference far shorter than what we had in Fridays of the past. Is that even an appealing thought to her?

It’s of little importance to me. Today’s Sudoku is already finished, and I’ve already taken a gander through the neighborhood paper. My attention is now on the first file of my shallow stack. This one is more medically oriented. Because many files in the library, especially in The Archive, blend in genre, the librarians tag them before sorting them into sections that best fit them. This file has three tags on its manila front: History, Shinobi, and Medical. Inside is an organized collection of papers and diagrams about the inner chakra system of nin. In the past, Konoha scientists believed the chakra system was separated from the normal systems of the human body — that tampering with one would not affect the other. Nowadays, we know the opposite is correct, but I am entranced by the reasonings and theories I find on the page. They say that modern sciences and medicines can still learn from the minds of the ancients, and while I have no desire or will to turn my life around and pursue the role of a medic-nin of all things (though, admittedly, it may be a better career than what I put up with now), a shinobi can only benefit from more knowledge. I’m in the middle of the file, reading about the findings of possible ‘gateway points’ in the chakra system, and I’m so consumed by it that I do not realize History Girl is hovering by the edge of the chair across from me until, slowly, she sits, and the cushion puffs under her weight.

My gaze lifts, and she’s watching me closely, on the edge, as if ready to lift and leave if I so much as sneer at her. I don’t. My expression is untouched, offering no disdain or relief from her presence.

”Hello,” is her whispered greeting, and she smiles a little, waits a beat more, and then settles into the chair and opens her book to the last several pages.

I say nothing back, returning to my file, and the quiet leads me into the depths of it once more. Time stretches on. No one peeks their head in to disturb us. My ears grow numb to flipping paper and soft, artificial buzzing.

And then —

“Chakra . . . points?” My attention pulls away, and I find History Girl partially leaning out of her seat, old book situated on her lap. She’s staring at the diagram on the back of the page I’m currently reading. It’s a simple illustration of the chakra system — much like the ones I’d see during my days in the Academy. The older I got, the more detailed and complex they got. Her film-white eyes squint a little. “That’s what they are?”

Out of habit, my senses expand from my body. I don’t pick up any chakra from her, and just looking at her tells me she’s not a shinobi. Relaxed pose. A ninja doesn’t know how to relax once they leave the Academy. They sleep lightly, and they spend their days off-duty with an edge to their step and a cautious eye taking in their surroundings. Even in the isolated quiet of the room, I sit with my back to the corner so no one has the chance to catch me off-guard. Meanwhile, History Girl used to sit by the door, where she’d be right in the way of an attack. It’s clear she is no ninja, so what knowledge does she have of the chakra system?

My mouth screws shut. Am I supposed to answer that? It’s not common for civilians to ask such questions to shinobi; and even if it were, no one would ask me. That brings to my mind a slight curiosity: does she know who I am? I hadn’t expected so before, though (again) it’s rare for a Konoha civilian to not know who I am. Uchiha Sasuke is an infamous name to all of Konoha, civilians and shinobi alike, and with that sort of daunting, threatening, spiteful reputation comes a face, a look. How can you avoid someone, after all, if you do not know what that someone looks like? It’s not egotism on my part: it’s mere truth. I’m well-known, mostly for worse than for better.

History Girl does not seem dissuaded by my silence. She continues, “It shows so few. I thought there were more.”

”There are.” My voice breaks from my mouth before I realize. Her eyes snap up from the diagram. “There are eighty-four points, but these are the major thirteen.”

Her head leans a little further, mouth pinched with wonder.

”Why are they major? What makes them different from the rest?”

It occurs to me in a passive manner that this is far from a normal conversation I’ve ever had. Perhaps a lesson in the middle of my time at the Academy, but beyond that, in my line of work, in my experiences of being a shinobi, thorough talk on the thirteen chakra points is a myth — something that simply does not happen. It’s just normal, understood information. Like breathing. You don’t discuss with your teammates the intimate details of breathing.

My mind pauses. I look down at the diagram, then back at History Girl.

”Each of these points are connected to significant systems of the body,” I explain. The words feel strange on my tongue, but it’s not hard to clarify. I’ve just never had to before. “Disrupting them would cause major injury to a larger area of the body, whereas disrupting smaller chakra points would only affect that specific section.”

Her eyes narrow, trying to take in the pathways that connect the points. I ought to just give it to her if she’s that curious, though I haven’t a clue why she would be. What good would knowledge on chakra points do for a civilian?

”It’s possible to disrupt them?” For some reason, that seems to really surprise her.

I scoff, rolling my eyes. “Naturally. Shinobi are trained for that. If chakra points didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t put so much money into researching them.”

Too much money. Every Tuesday, I get a detailed list from Finance on what Divisions get funding and how much and where that money is coming from, and almost one-fifth of it goes to Research, and almost half of that goes into chakra study. The problem is that we have our detailed diagrams and our books and charts, and we have medic-nin and hospital specialists who study those diagrams and books and charts, but at the end of the day, you really don’t have a visual of that detailed, twisted, overly complex chakra system until you have a dead body to cut into. Sakura tells me the highest percentage a medic-nin has of hitting the right chakra point is 62%. She’s that 62%. Her underlings and coworkers range between 30% - 57%. She tells me that if there’s some way — just some way — to be able to see the chakra system of someone on the table, then that percentage of accurately and precisely hitting major and small chakra points can be as close to 99% as ever before. To see the chakra system. What a joke. Even my own dōjutsu only allows me to make out foggy outlines of the thirteen major points, and there has yet to be another dōjutsu discovered that even reaches half the level of power my rinnegan has. To have the ability to see the entirety of the chakra system in an alive body is wishful thinking. A fairytale. I’ve told Sakura this, and one day, I’ll get the chance to tell Research this. Then, maybe, they’ll have the brain to put that money into better use. Better training grounds. Better physical therapy opportunities for the thousands of injured nin that come to this miserable village — a village that gives them a medal for their courage and a spot in a crowded hospital for a few nights, until they recover from their broken legs or their fractured skull or the blindness in their eyes — as if recovery only takes a couple nights for someone who risked their life for their village.

My missing arm bites into my nerves, and phantom pains sizzle into the muscle around my shoulder, up my neck, into the blistering chakra behind my eyes.

I grit my teeth and hiss in irritation. History Girl winces and leans back.

”I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m bothering you.”

She stands, and I think she’s about to leave, but she only returns to the history section, grabs another book, and returns to her statuesque reading pose in the seat across from me.

______

Next Friday, History Girl hesitates, but only some. She does not linger in the small spots between shelves, but she does pause by the seat once more. I contemplate just telling her to sit. Her hovering is annoying and distracting. I’m not keen on the idea of acting like her mother, telling her what to do. She should be able to figure it out herself.

”Would it bother you if I apologize?”

I’ll admit it surprises me, some, that she’s speaking again. After last Friday, I figured she wouldn’t dare.

And yet, here she is.

I drop the paper to my knee, grunting. There’s a book in her hand, but it does not shield her. It hangs by her stomach.

”I was curious about what you were reading,” she says, softly. “I bothered you, and I’m sorry.”

Her head bows, and her hair falls around her face.

She hesitates, then sits, and I sigh and drop the paper onto my stack of soon-to-be-read files and lift myself from my chair. Her anxious gaze follows me as I turn into the shelves, reach my usual section, pull out a file, and return. I drop it on the table that sits between her chair and mine, and she blinks rapidly.

”If you’re that curious, then read it yourself,” I tell her. “It’s in an archive for a reason.”

The cut of my voice warms her face, but she doesn’t cringe away. She murmurs a shy thanks as I drop back into my seat, taking my paper back to flip it over and start on the Sudoku puzzle. The elders must have realized the last few issues have been easy — even for the supposedly ‘difficult’ puzzles — for this one, admittedly, has me stumped. I manage to jot down a few numbers and get one horizontal line filled in, but the middle square is almost completely blank, and I frown in concentration.

To let the puzzle settle, I reach for one of the awaiting files on the table. Subconsciously, my attention directs to History Girl. Her nose is practically deep in the material, and from my angle, she really looks blind, like an elder squinting through their spectacles to try and read the small print. A small wave of amusement overturns my mellow, slightly edged mood, and I wonder if that girl would just take anything that was put in front of her. An anatomy textbook? The boring drawl of governmental paperwork? A gruesome retelling of some of the most bloody battles in history? Would she take it all and sit, curled, in her chair and sink into the words like she does with everything else she reads?

I jump between file and puzzle.

I stay in that rhythm until it’s just after 6:20. My attention turns to History Girl once more, her face painted with confusion.  It sits with me, weighs down my focus, and I sigh once more.

“If you have questions,” I mutter, eyes set in the off-white space between two paragraphs in my readings, “just ask them.”

I don’t examine her expression, her reaction. Clearly, something isn’t sitting with her. If she wants to ask, then she will. It doesn’t matter to me either way. There’s a stretch of flipping, of light, barely audible breathing. A shift. The start of a hum that picks up at the end into a word, a question.

“Is that okay?”

My thumb curls just enough into the aged paper for my nail to make a slight dent. “If it wasn’t,” I say, “would I have said anything?”

A frigid reply, I admit. There’s another period of slight shifting. The air-conditioning kicks on. The vent above blows air directly onto us, and the corners of the page skitter.

“Most people . . . cannot see chakra channels?” History Girl asks.

I check for a fleeting moment, looking across the way to see her position in the file. She’s about three-quarters through. The papers she’s read so far, especially the middle handful, are heavy on the research aspect of the chakra system. With predecessors theorizing the concept of a chakra system and making educated guesses by otherwise hypothesized maps of ‘gateways’ and ‘pathways’, a more scientific era came about. They started to cut into bodies. Dead ones. Only then, with empty channels, were scientists able to observe the chakra system and make a more accurate diagram of it.

And in those old pages, that is the only way one can see the system.

“All people,” I correct, “aside from a specific clan.”

History Girl has a wonderstruck brightness to her eyes, half-illuminated by the lights above. This is the first time her eyes look real and working, rather than like dead, glossy film.

“Who?” she asks.

My nose scrunches. “The Uchiha.” And my tone falls into a touch of bitterness. “ Obviously. ”

“Oh!” Her voice lifts, not loud, but pitched with something light and almost chipper. She brings the history book she had left to wait for her attention on the table into her arms, slipping the file beneath it as she opens it and flips through it. “I have read about them. Their rivalry with the Senju. Madara and Hashirama. The start of Konoha and the Military Police Force.” A purse of wonder marks her mouth. “I have seen them here. It’s amazing that they’re still around.”

That confirms two things for me: that she does not know who I am at all, and that she is not from Konoha.

“The Police Force still stands,” I confirm, voice cold, “but the Uchiha are dead.”

History Girl’s face falls, but not in an expression of sheer sadness. I don’t think she even realizes the weight of my words, the harsh breath that I used when admitting the demise of the Uchiha. In a way, it makes sense. Her only knowledge of my clan comes from books. The massacre, if she ever read about it, would be nothing but a story to her — something far away from her. Not that any book here would accurately portray it. Not that what really happened to my family, my brother, would ever be printed on a damn page in this library.

“Oh,” she murmurs. “I didn’t know.”

I huff — no, of course she didn’t.

“They were the only ones who could see the pathways?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

She places the book down, chakra system file situated between both hands. “And they are gone.”

It’s not a question. It’s acknowledgment. A stiffness takes over her shoulders, and then she relaxes back and continues her reading. Her nonchalance about the death of the Uchiha is, somehow, comforting. It’s due, perhaps, to my lack of detail. ‘ The Uchiha are dead’ does not at all encapsulate the morbid details and corrupt background of the Uchiha Massacre. But even so, I am relieved of teary eyes and weak, half-hearted “I’m sorry”s and awkwardness that can only come when you realize you’re sharing the same space as someone who has survived the epitome of tragedy.

The clock hands find their place, and History Girl puts both her book and the file away in their respective spots. She returns to her chair, thanks me, of all things, and wishes me a good weekend before leaving me to spend my final fifteen minutes staring at the shelf next to me, a sign named Konoha Clans hanging from the ceiling above.

______

Next week, construction finally begins on the walls. Kakashi finds it celebratory enough to drag everyone to dinner (us paying, of course). Naruto doesn’t hold back on drinking, and Sakura, with an early shift at the hospital the next day, only takes two shots before washing it down with food and water. Sai sits between them, and it’s hard to hold back the taste of bitterness forming in the back of my throat when I stare across the table at the three of them. A bitterness I have no need or right to feel, but bone-deep bitterness, nonetheless.

It stays with me into Thursday and Friday morning. My replies during meetings with Intelligence are clipped, and when the Police Force Chief comes into my office to drop off reports and crime rate statistics personally, I think about what History Girl had said — how it’s a wonder that they’re still around.

A fucking blessing, I think. If I had the power, they’d be eradicated within the week.

The toll of my bad mood summons a prolonged headache, and I am quick to leave the moment my work day ends Friday afternoon. I grab the paper, slip into the empty archive, sit, and immediately turn to the Sudoku puzzle on the back. Figuring it out relieves some tension in my head, and as my pen hovers over the squares, I skim some of the sections on the back page.

By the time I’m done, it’s 4:25, and History Girl enters with quiet grace. When she sits, heavy book in hand from the history section, she greets me in her normal, faint way, and she does not speak for the rest of the time she’s there until, as is routine, she leaves at 6:45. Her ‘have a good weekend’ is accompanied with a small smile that she offers at the door, and then it shuts behind her.

The quiet did me good. Talking with History Girl is not an annoyance, I suppose. Not like it is with most people — even the ones I’d consider in a more merciful light. Conversation between us is short, with prolonged gaps of silence between it, and that manner is preferable. If only Naruto or Sakura could hold short conversation. If only they kept it to a few words. But even if talking with History Girl isn’t as much as a nuisance, it’s not something I desire, nor push for. I do not come to one of the most isolated spots in Konoha just to converse. It’s the get away from the conversation, from what social etiquette requires of me, that I find solace and peace in. The Archive gives me that, and I believe it gives History Girl the same. She does not nag for conversation. Hello. Goodbye. That’s it.

And I’m okay with that.

And I can give her that quiet that we both come here for.

At 7:00, I leave. I make a simple dinner, I stretch and train in the only remaining dojo of the estate, and then I rewrap my arm after a shower and take my pills and sleep lightly through the night.

The weekend aids my headache, but the next week burns into it.

______

Thursday drives me up the wall. Up the barely-finished, security-hazard wall of Konoha. The common man and his common, idiotic Advisors have written a call for the Council to approve pulling funds from Reconnaissance — to give to Research and New Technologies of all places. The ones with most of the money. The ones who have more than they know what to do with. Security is just barely making do. Construction and the Medical Office have been begging for more resources and hands to help with the overpopulated and understaffed hospitals. And they want to give it to Research and New Technologies. And to nail it in the coffin, they lay it out on my desk, all their signatures in black ink at the bottom except for mine.

I go to Kakashi straight from my office, and I smack the thing down and watch with growing frustration as he reads it over.

“That’s . . . an interesting call,” are his eventual words.

“It’s a pathetic call,” I confirm. “I’m not signing it. The fact that they think something this — something so moronic will pass with the Council is nothing short of foolish.”

Kakashi faces my rage with calm passivity. He lets it boil, then simmer, then he mentions that Reconnaissance has been on a slow track recently. Search and Retrieve still makes its rounds, but divisions like Infiltration and Capture/Interrogation haven’t been busy. Not being busy means money is sitting, and that sitting money could be aimed elsewhere. I frown, because we both know why that money is sitting — the Police Force has been overwhelmed. The reports I’m required to read show as much. Crime has risen 200% in the last six months. Not enough patrol, which means criminals get away, which means, of course, no one is going in to be interrogated. Of course Reconnaissance has sitting money.

“Next meeting is the start of November,” Kakashi reminds me. “Don’t want this to pass? Then make a case.”

As if it’s that easy. As if it’s as simple as writing a one-page document and getting the signature of the Advisors. As if I don’t have Security breathing down my neck. As if every time I see Sakura, she doesn’t look more and more tired from her long hours at the hospital. As if Reconnaissance’s department head hasn’t already met with me, straight-backed but weary-eyed, muttering his worry about funds, about what will happen to his teams and Konoha if they don’t get the money they need into the next year. As if he didn’t come to me specifically because he knew I’d understand — because I’m a ninja — because I know the darker, harsher, inner workings of the Combat Department — because a handful of months back, I used to be exactly in his shoes.

Kakashi sees my indignation. He removes himself from his seat, meeting me at the front of his desk. His hand is steady on my shoulder, and his eyes are stern, but not unsympathetic. I know he’s not doing this to torture me. I do. It’s as much his fight as it is mine, so I swallow the hot rage in my throat, forcefully relax my shoulders, and leave with a bow.

Needless to say, I’m not in a good mood for the rest of Thursday. The walk home is steamed. I ignore anyone around me, and I bump shoulders into those straying in the middle of the street, sneering at them as I pass, their shouts of anger not denting my skin in the least.

Friday is welcomed, almost begged for. The cool air of The Archive hits my face first, and I suck it in and muffle the fire in my lungs. I grab my files, drop them in a stack on the small, round table next to my seat, and work on my puzzle. It takes all my focus, saving my sparking, sizzling mind from the haunting annoyances of the week. It’s 4:25 before I know it. History Girl sits in her chair, legs tucked beneath her, and I meet her normal, short greeting with a huff and the click of my pen.

We’re settling into the silence.

I’m racing from square to square, finishing the puzzle with ease. I’m just about in the headspace of forgetting everything around me when —

“U- Uchiha?” It’s a squeak, which is a first. People usually hiss it, or scream it, or whimper it. Squeaking is beyond the norm, and I look up to find History Girl’s round eyes stuck to the back of my local paper. A hand, not very girly — sort of torn, with pronounced knuckles and rough finger pads — lifts to point accusatory at it, and she continues, “Th-There’s an Uchiha!”

I flip over the paper, and, indeed, the front article’s title states, in bold: Uchiha Sasuke: Neighborhood Menace Once More.

What the hell? Quickly, I read the article. Apparently, last night, the person I had the bump-in with was the working-class son of one of the elders. He was coming back after a week of lumbering outside Konoha walls, but in the middle of his exhausted return home, he was knocked over by an unapologetic, cruel Uchiha. Typical.

“I thought they were dead.” History Girl’s eyes remain wide. “There’s . . . one alive. Here.”

I click my tongue and disregard the paper onto the table between us. Little does she know.

Placing her book carefully on the table, History Girl reads the front article. The surprise in her eyes fades as she reads every nasty remark they have to say about me. The traitor of Konoha. What’s the point of him being here if he’s just going to harass Konoha civilians? He’s a war-criminal. He never should have come back. He should be locked up, for the safety of the village. I can see it all collect in her gaze. It makes it heavy and gray.

When she’s done, she returns it to the table.

A file is already in hand, and I don’t give the paper much thought. It’s a constant and expected reaction. I’m unliked. If I got hurt by every insult they threw at me, I’d be more miserable than I already am (which is hard to believe, trust me). I don’t need their sympathies or their high respect. I just want them to leave me alone.

I start to scan the first page when History Girl whispers, “Sorry. I bothered you again.”

I glare at her. “Do you feel the need to apologize for everything?”

If my bark surprises her, she does a good job hiding it. Aside from her fingers pushing together in what looks like a nervous tick, there’s nothing feeble about her posture. “I try not to, but, um, you looked upset.”

I can’t tell what expression I have, but I smother it into a cold detachment.

“I’m not,” I demand, and she nods, though I don’t know for sure if she believes me or not.

“I thought they were all dead,” she whispers.

I scoff. “Apparently not.”

She looks at the article again, at the bold text. “Uchiha . . . Sasuke.”

Her tongue shapes the syllables of my name in a way that makes my spine straighten. I shift and reposition myself in the chair and focus back onto the file in hand. Part of me is curious what she thinks about the article. To be more accurate, I wonder how she feels about the Uchiha Sasuke she just read about, and I wonder how she would react if I told her that very menace is the man that sits across from her every Friday afternoon from 4:25 to 6:45.

But I don’t ask. I try to focus on my reading. History Girl grabs her book, folds, then unfolds. I hear the soft crinkle of paper as she grabs the neighborhood news paper, and just as I draw into the words, I think I hear her say: “One’s alive. Thank the Gods.”

Chapter Text

It stays with me, I guess. Sticks to my clothes like burweed. I go home, to that ruin of stone and tall grass, and it’s still attached to my skin. ‘ One’s alive. Thank the Gods.'   I try to wash it out of my ears Friday night, Saturday morning, Sunday afternoon. The weekend is cool, and the heat of the shower fogs into the frigid air of the house when I open the bathroom door and pad out into the hallway. The jump from hot to cold starts my body, but History Girl's words will not leave me.

I do not deny that it shocked me. To be thankful at the revelation that a member of the Uchiha is still alive is not an expected reaction — especially not after reading such a vile description of him from the local elders. And why should a History Girl, someone who seems to not be from Konoha, someone who didn't even know of the Uchiha until a few weeks ago, be thankful that one is alive? What does she have to gain from my presence?

I count down the days to Friday. I wait with slight impatience for my ritual return to The Archive, to three hours of peace. I deny any iota of that impatience relating to History Girl until it comes and I'm in my seat and I'm watching the clock slowly click by with a stack of files resting next to me and a paper on my knee, waiting for my attention. I haven't even touched the Sudoku puzzle on the back. I don't care to read what the elders have to say about the weather or the noisy neighbors or that bastard Uchiha who has the gall to show his face every now and then. What I care about is that clock, that long minute hand slowly crawling to the 5 at the lower corner of that round, pale face. I think I remember my mother musing about how a watched clock tells time slowly. It has been a long time since I've thought of her. Sometimes, I see her in my memory, and I hear her humming in my vacant dreams, but she and my Father don't touch my mind often. I don't let them.

Nevertheless, my gaze does not leave the clock until the door opens. Then, I flip the paper, start my Sudoku, and flatten any lines of expression out of my face. I listen to her slipping in and out of the shelves. I hear her settle. I tap the seconds against my pen, and when three minutes have passed, I dare myself to look up, to see her.

History Girl looks back. Our eyes lift at the same time, and we meet gazes, and her face flushes some before she forces her eyes back onto the pages of her book. I force myself to focus on my puzzle. I try not to think about how her hair was pulled back, how her bangs were getting long enough to hang over her eyes.

I want to tell her: 'Get a haircut. You can't read like that.'

And then I want to ask: 'Why do you care that Uchiha Sasuke is alive?'

But I don't.

______

Without my permission, the answer comes by next Friday.

My morning is almost leisurely, which is a rarity. I do normal paperwork in my dark, windowless office. Shizune doesn't pop over to bother me with Kakashi's usual concerns and musings. Naruto brings onigiri for a late breakfast, and he drags a chair to my desk to eat with me, licking grains of sticky rice from his thumb as he asks about the wall and if Finance is giving me a hard time and if the Head of Security has had a mental breakdown yet. When he leaves, I'm only alone for four minutes, and then I'm told that the Head of Construction is asking for an audience with me.

A nerve in my jaw tenses. My fist settles on my desk as he comes in. I expected a dour expression and the unfortunate news that something must be delayed, that resources have run out, that half of his men are out with flu. But he doesn't look particularly fearful for his life; not like all the Heads are when they must deliver bad news to the last Uchiha. He does not look pleased, either, but my dreary thoughts are settled by the time he's at my desk, head bowing.

"I have a request," he tells me. "I will go as far as begging to get your acceptance of this."

Head of Construction is what most would call a giant, fearsome man. His eyes are sharp, and one hand could break bone if he squeezed hard enough. His peers and men joke that the ground shakes beneath him when he walks. For a man of his kind to go so far as begging — to fold himself on his hands and knees in front of Konoha's traitor of all people — it can only mean this request of his is not only dire, but that I am his last hope of accepting it.

Curious, I motion for him to continue, and he tells me that, indeed, there are issues with the rebuilding of the wall. Weakness spots. The stone caves in, and half of their work is toppled before the day is over. If they don't figure out how to fix this, there will be delays, and Konoha will continue to be in this sensitive spot where they have no walls and enemy nin can simply come in without much protection.

As I thought. But before I can toil over the matter, he tells me an interesting tale. Iwagakure, the Hidden Rock Village, once homed a unique clan of miners that were said to have the ability to see through the earth. When spring of this year melted the last of the snow, that clan moved to Konoha, and now they live here permanently. He does not have to link the stories together for me to understand. A clan who can see through rock and earth would help immensely with finding the weak points of the new wall.

I tell him to recruit a few members of the clan, and he tells me he cannot.

"I have gone." His sharp eyes turn away, ashamed. "I have sent others. They have rejected all of us."

And now I see where I come into this — why this giant will drop to his knees if I so much as grimace.

There is only one reason why a clan would reject the opportunity the Head of Construction himself has offered: they have eyes on something more. Something that would strengthen their pride and their place in this new village that homes them. A meeting with the Hokage himself, perhaps —

. . . Or a meeting with one of the most powerful shinobi alive.

And seeing that this clan must be owners of some kind of unique dōjutsu, I can only assume it's the latter they seek.

Settling back in my chair, I consider this. I glance, momentarily, at the clock sitting on my desk, and then I create a to-do list in my head, plotting everything I must get done today and everything that can be pushed to the following week.

Then, finally, my gaze returns to the man.

"What is the clan's name?" I ask.

His heavy shoulders fall. "Hyuuga," he says. Then, he pulls something from his jacket. A piece of paper. He slides it across the desk, and I read the smudged ink of an address. My glare lifts to him, and he flinches. "You must go to them. They will not come."

______

And so I find myself in the outskirts of the village. The toppled wall is an ugly glare in the background, barely hidden behind the trees that have already begun to shed leaves. Some of me is damaged by this site. Konoha is not my village, but even I feel some shame in the idea of this new clan seeing the weak, disturbed parts of the village. How they must compare. Every day, they step outside, and they see that ugly wall and figure the great, standing Konoha they have heard stories of was a lie, and they now live in a wasteland.

But the tightening bitterness in my gut eases away when I come to the address. The neighborhood is hardly that. A place of ghosts, perhaps. The kind of place the Chief of the Police Force would say 'births crime'. Abandoned homes. Overgrown yards. Strays and birds are the only living creatures about. And when I come to the Hyuuga abode, it is no different. A small collection of white buildings huddled in the confines of a stick wall. There are no guards at the makeshift gate — no one in the thin courtyards between buildings. The only sign of life is the trimmed lawn and the straight path of gravel leading up to the engawa. The sight of the place makes me think that, perhaps, the Hyuuga do not care about the damaged wall just off in the distance. A clan who can live in such a place would not care about such things.

I step onto the engawa, find the main door (the only one slightly decorated with the fading silhouettes of cranes), and let my chakra flare. That should be warning enough of my arrival, but nevertheless, I knock my foot into the wood for extra measure. I hear nothing on the other side for a while. With clans, usually it's hard to keep quiet. Too many people leads to a harder time controlling them. But there's not a word. A breath. Not the cry of a child or the haggering cough of an elder.

I knock my foot into the engawa again, harder, and my chakra burns into the air. Do not keep me waiting. The warning must have hit them, for the slow, paced noise of steps finally lifts into the air.

The door of fading cranes slides back, and my chakra snaps again, but this time subconsciously.

There is a man before me, and he is frowning without hiding it, and there is an irked fold between his furrowed brows, and the cut of his eye is strange and deadly; white, like film over the eyes of a dead animal. And I am not in The Archive. And he is not History Girl.

The man notices my rinnegan first, then stares at my missing arm.

"Who are you?" he asks, and I realize the mistakes I've made along the way between here and my shadowy office.

They Hyuuga Clan, who can recognize the sight of a dōjutsu but not its owner, does not care at all about prestige, about how high-ranking the member of Konoha's buckling government is when he comes and tries to persuade them to please, kindly, help with the rebuilding of the wall.

The Hyuuga Clan, despite their void eyes and vessels almost completely empty of chakra, still hold the secret of a dōjutsu that I have never come across.

And the Hyuuga Clan, like the Uchiha, who have been subjected to squalor and ruin and fading doors and toppled buildings, still hold enough pride to glare across the thin border of inside and outside at the intruder on their engawa.

I realize at that moment that I have no hope of convincing them of anything, but still, when I murmur my name, the man stares, considers, then begrudgingly invites me in to meet his uncle. I enter, bare feet against the tatami, nothing offered for me, though I wouldn't take it even if they did. I follow him through rooms, and I see more of the Hyuuga, and they all have those eyes, and unconsciously, I search for History Girl amongst the faces. I'm not sure if I'd even be able to make her out. My eye might pass over her, and I'd be none the wiser.

We enter a small room, and I can tell from the robes of the man inside that he is their Head. His eyes are pointed, almost gray, and he does not offer his gaze in polite greeting when the other Hyuuga announces my name. He stares off, looking at the opposite wall. I wonder if his dōjutsu allows him to look through walls as well. I wonder, this time more quietly to myself, if he sees History Girl on the other side of that wall.

I do not wait for the invitation to be seated. I take the blue cushion across from him, bend my knees into it, and rest my hand on the bamboo mat. I sit before him, in the pathway of his gaze, but it still feels to me like he is looking beyond me.

"Lord Hyuuga," I drone.

The other one, still standing, flinches and grits his jaw. His uncle is passive.

Finally, he speaks. "Neji. Tell me his name."

I speak before he can. "Uchiha Sasuke."

"Uchiha-san." He says the name like it is stale bread. There is nothing to it. I'm almost offended by the tone alone. "Do you work for Konoha's Construction Team?"

"Do I look the type?" I scoff. How long have the Hyuuga been stuck in their Iwa mines to not know the look of a ninja? Their eyes may let them see through earth, but they are not as all-seeing as I had expected. How disappointing. "I have come, however, as a negotiator for their cause."

His white hands rest with ease on his knees. The man is aged. He could be around the age of my father if he hadn't been slaughtered. But there is not the twinge of elderly confusion in his hard gaze. He's not old enough to fade, to be submerged in nebulous thoughts. His back is straight, and his jaw is steady, and he holds himself as if he were the Head of a prestigious clan, as if he is not homed in an abandoned neighborhood.

"We have rejected Konoha's gracious offer numerous times," he says.

The corner of my lip lifts in a half-sneer. "Then I'll save you the effort of another rejection."

The one standing behind the Hyuuga Head's shoulder — Neji — has a perplexed frown.

"You will not try to convince us?"

"Why should I trouble myself?" I mutter.

He looks down at me, and I glare back, unafraid. "Then why do you stay?"

I turn back to the Head. "It is rude," I say, "to not offer your guest tea."

Neji's hands curl, but the Head is unaffected. He waves for his nephew to fetch tea, so he does, and when he returns, his mouth does not settle out of its irritated grimace as he sets down the cups and pours tea into them. I do not wait for the Head to drink first, and he does not express any anger.

Instead, his eyes find focus on my form, and I feel trapped in his gaze.

"Tell me, Uchiha." His white fingers lift his cup from the lip, and he holds it with an air of cool grace. "What does that rinnegan of yours let you see?"

And this, I'm sure, is an insult. Because he knows the name, so he knows its power, its abilities. A destructive dōjutsu that could flatten lands. But he asks, specifically, what it sees, as if he already knows; as if to say, between the lines of steam of his tea, that despite how powerful my dōjutsu is, it cannot see through earth like his can. Not through stone, through wall, through countless other types of material, surely. For if it can see through stone, what limits could it have, truly? But the rinnegan can only see the thirteen major chakra points. How helpful. How utterly, fucking helpful.

I stand, force a bow to my neck, and leave.

The lip of his cup just touches his mouth when I slam the sliding door behind me.

______

The day turns gloomy and frigid when I push through the double-doors of the library. The sudden turn of temperature was not expected, and I am blasted by the air conditioning, which sinks into my joints and freezes the small spaces between bone. The librarian by the newspaper rack has a makeshift shawl around her shoulders — a white tablecloth usually used for whatever events the library hosts. She's breathing into her hands, and when I come, she apologizes for the cold, as if I'm the one freezing.

I grab my paper, and I go down to The Archive, and I hear the heating kick in as I settle.

The irritation that has stayed with me since my meeting with the Hyuuga is a dull pain in my jaw, fading, as I bask in seclusion and quiet. For twenty-five minutes, I am at ease. I don't think about the work I will have to return to on Monday. I don't think about the common man, and I don't think about the meeting in November, and I don't think about the wall. I forget I am in Konoha. I read the paper, and I pretend the elders are describing a faraway place. The organized shelves comfort me. I do not need comfort often, but sometimes, I find myself in their hold, and I feel as much comfort as a sole Uchiha survivor can.

Then she comes.

That girl with dead-film eyes. A dōjutsu with just enough chakra behind it to activate that ability. The one I once called  History Girl , who comes inside with a stagger to her step, and instead of disappearing behind the shelves, she moves past me, almost brushes against my knee, and reaches up to pluck a book from the shelf of Konoha Clans.

I see my family name on the title.

My hand snatches her wrist, and I sneer. "What are you doing?"

She must be mocking me. I come to her home, where her family of 'all-seeing eyes' barely spare me a glance, as if I'm not there, as if I don't exist. They notice my rinnegan, and they cackle. Bastards. And she is part of them, those Hyuuga, and she realizes I am the Uchiha Sasuke she has wondered about, and she realizes I'm not as foreboding as she once thought. The Uchiha of the past, the ones that built Konoha — they are the real Uchiha. Not this lone survivor. Not this traitor.

My annoyance bubbles, bursts.

I squeeze her arm, and she flinches and finally meets my eye.

The fear that hollows out her pale white is what I expected, but it's not directed at me. A ninja can tell when one strikes fear into someone; when one makes them quake for their life. They look at you like you're an approaching tsunami, or the starting rumbles of an earthquake; a force of nature they have no chance of beating, of surviving. She regards me with dread, but not dread of my anger, my frustration, my tight grip of her arm.

The book in her hands shakes.

I think I see the glassy shine of tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

Quietly, nervously, she says, "I-I need to meet Uchiha Sasuke."

She says my name again, and this time, it's like I am her last chance. I have never been anyone's last chance. Not in a good way. I was Itachi's last chance of retribution, of atonement for his sins, for what he did to his clan, his family — for what he did to me. When someone needs me, it's only so I can fulfill whatever fantasy they have in their head.

I thought, after today, the Hyuuga would want nothing from Uchiha Sasuke.

I force my hand to loosen. She hugs the book close, arms wrapped around it. Does she think I will take it from her?

"Have you forgotten what the paper said?" I ask. "He's a traitor."

She steps back and dips into her seat. She looks sick, shadowed, without the touch of sun. In a way, she reminds me of my office. Windowless. Lightless.

"He came to my clan." I sit a little forward in my seat. "He spoke with my father. They want us to help with the wall."

"Will you?"

Her mouth pinches. That's all I need to know. The Hyuuga aren't the kind to miraculously change their mind after rejecting the same offer countless times. Especially not when an Uchiha has come to meet them. I don't know much about them, but I can see that much.

"Then why must you meet him?" I sigh.

History Girl squirms. I reflect that, in some way, I know who she is now. Not all of her. But I know her clan, and that's enough to address her properly. From now on, she is just a Hyuuga to me. Another Hyuuga, living in white, bare walls in an abandoned part of Konoha.

"My family has a curse," she tells me. Curse. If she were a shinobi, she would not consider it in such a way. "I hope . . . I hope that Uchiha Sasuke might be able to help me with it. T-Teach me, maybe. Show me that . . . ."

Her voice fades. The sick white of her face gains a little color as she looks across at me and sees my stern expression.

"You want to use him," I conclude.

Most would flinch away. Most would scream their denial.

She only reflects on my words, and she wonders, "Are you using someone when you learn from them?"

I don't know how to answer that. I flip the newspaper over in my lap.

"What does he have," I mutter, " that can teach you anything?"

The book relaxes against her arched knee, and her hands go over the hard face, nails trailing the indents of the title. She touches Uchiha like it's delicate, but not breakable. Something to cherish, not tuck away and hide forever. I can't tell if it's the book she finds precious, or my Clan in particular. Would it really matter either way?

"His rinnegan."

Something tightens in my gut. It's a little uncomfortable, and it almost makes me feel sick. Heat blasts against our faces. She's slowly turning a healthy color, and the chill is slowly leaving my bones.

I admit that, maybe, this one isn't as much a Hyuuga as the others.

It would do her nor I no good to refer to her as such when such a name is tarnished with prejudice and ire. For while her clan would look down on my dōjutsu, strangely, she embraces it. And I do not need her respect, her embracement. I have lived decades without it. If I hungered for the consideration and recognition of others, the favor and adoration that went deeper and beyond my looks, my power, my skill, I would have starved long ago. I am alive to this day because of myself, and I will continue to live because of myself.

And say as one may that I am a cruel man, but even I have some respect for others.

She at least deserves to be considered as an individual, and not by her clan alone.

History Girl swallows a lump of determination, and I see it spark in her eyes. That fear has vanished, and I admire it some.

Until she opens the book.

"If you ever consider meeting him," I tell her from across the way, "then I suggest you do not read anything from that."

She hears my warning and shuts the book softly, but her head tilts with confusion.

"Why?"

I don't bother to tell her that it’s because it will poison her mind with pity, with sympathy for what has happened to the Uchiha. The only way I can stand coming here and sharing this place with her is solely because she does not know me. She does not hate me like the elders, and she does not pity me like others. I'm just someone who comes here every Friday afternoon to read thirty-to-fifty-year-old files in a spot in the library that no one bothers to visit. I want it to stay that way.

"You'll start to fear him," is my half-truth. I click my pen and start working on the Sudoku puzzle at the bottom. "You'll never wish to see him."

History Girl laughs.

The heating kicks off, but my body still feels warm, as if I'm still being blasted with hot air.

"Do I give the impression that I am easy to scare?"

I look up, and she's smiling at me. Head of Construction had mentioned that the Hyuuga were a clan of miners from Iwagakure. History Girl is not coursing with chakra, and she obviously has no ninja training, but I wouldn't go so far as to say she's totally helpless. She's small, but not a twig. When I had her arm, it didn't feel as if I could break it with ease, and her hands have seen plenty of days of work. She's meek, and a little bouncy, and I suppose I had mistaken that for easily frightened.

"Heed my suggestion or don't. I don't care."

Her fingers scrape the title again, and then she stands, lifts onto the tips of her toes, and slides the book back into place.

"Do you know him?" History Girl asks, looking down at me. Or so I think, but when I crane my neck back, her gaze is stuck to the newspaper. "Uchiha Sasuke, I mean."

I want her to stop saying my name.

"Unfortunately," I bite.

"Will he be upset if I visit him while knowing nothing about him?"

Is that not what I did to your clan? I sink my teeth into that statement before it can leave my mouth.

"Only mildly," I say, just to scare her more than anything else.

And I think I succeeded, for her eyes widen and jump around, and then she snakes away into the shelves, bringing several hefty textbooks with her. She places them on the round table, takes the one on top, curls into her seat, and reads with a quickness to her eyes.

I smirk and focus back on my puzzle.

"Top corner," she whispers. "Seven."

I check, find that she's right, and jot it down.

"Thank you," is the last thing she says for the rest of our afternoon together.

Chapter Text

My name comes up in the neighborhood newspaper again. Like last time, I'm not portrayed in the finest of light, and while the detailing of my huffy marches down the streets that scare the children and irk the elders aren't painted in excruciatingly vile adjectives as it had been a few Friday issues back, this one stings some. Not a shocking, hallowing sting. It's like the warning bite of a cat. Just enough pain to make you stop. I hate to admit it, but my body betrays me; I'm not that untouchable man that I try to be, that I must be to survive in this village. I sting. It's only slight, but it's there.

I slide it across the table when I'm done. History Girl pulls away from her file by the sound of paper swiping against polished wood, and she checks my expression, carefully tucks her reading away, and takes the paper in hand. Again, I find myself watching her read. Her knees tucked in, feet flattened beneath her weight. I wonder how she stands it. The circulation has to get cut off at some point, but she never rubs the feeling back into her muscles when 6:45 comes around. History Girl reads like every word is gospel: her history books, but also anything that's related to that Uchiha Sasuke whom she is so unquestionably affixed to. I would almost peg her a stalker — one of those girls in my Academy days that would obsess over me. Back then, so much of Konoha was. They still are, just in a different way.

I watch the flow of expression on her face, and I'm a cool string of perplexed once more when I spot no downturned disdain encroaching on her features. There's that fluttering curiosity and wonder, and then she blinks it away, folds the paper against her lap, and turns to me.

"They say he is angry," she says.

An understatement, really. I blow out my frustration. "Doesn't he have every right to be?"

She considers this. I think she might deny it, or she might muse that every human has a right to human emotions, but she instead asks, "Is there something to be angry about?"

The yearn to chew her out about her intense naivety almost pushes me to the edge of my seat, but I remind myself she's not from here, she's not even a shinobi. I hold out my hand, and she gives me the paper, and I scribble through Sudoku to get my hand moving, to get some of my energy out.

"Half of this village's Council is trying to screw us over," I say.

History Girl does not grab for her file, and she does not search the room for a distraction, a way out. Her eyes stay on me, and it's a little unsettling. I should be used to her. Months have passed since we started sharing this pace. I should be used to her eyes, but I'm not.

I wonder if I ever will be.

"How?" she asks.

Is this really something I want to get into? The point of my coming here is to get away from work, from annoyances, from the bending middle of our government, like a bridge about to collapse. I come here to escape, to drown in quiet and words, to distract my head for just three hours. I'm waiting for the annoyance of my interrupted schedule to drill through me. I'm ready to glare and sneer like I would with the janitors. But it doesn't come. I don't feel like I'd ruin this sanctuary of mine if I let a bit of the outside world slip in.

So I tell her.

"Konoha’s government is separated into departments," I say, "which have their own divisions and subgroups. The job of the Advisors of the Council is to keep those departments on track. If one area is struggling, we look for ways to help them. Usually with money. Usually with resources. More people, less people. Whatever needs to be done."

History Girl has a pinch to her eyes, following my words. I wonder if she understands at all what I'm saying. Should I even bother wasting my breath on this?

"Is that happening now?" she asks. "Is one of the departments failing?"

I settle back in my chair, the blanket of slight relief hovering over my shoulders.

"They all are," I spit. "Fucking all of them."

She hums, trying to understand. "And the anger is because . . . nothing is going right?"

"The anger —" My voice sharpens, tacking to the thick air, the heat seeping through the vents above, "is because most of the Advisors don't have a damn clue about the ninja world, and yet they're trying to govern that world. They think the war is over. Who fucking needs Search and Capture? Who needs Interrogation? There's no war! All is right in the world! Take the money away and put it into better spots. Research — because they apparently don't already have enough. So we take the money out, and Recon goes under, and then the enemy sees that we've got our bellies exposed, and they'll come out of hiding and attack us — and maybe then those damn Advisors will regret pulling funding from our shinobi when they become prisoners of fucking war."

My left shoulder aches for mercy, but my chakra, burned with ire, gives no pause to its scorching race through my channels. It eats down my arm, into the severed ends where my arm stops, and phantom pains sink into my nerves as that cracking chakra gathers there with nowhere else to go. The ink bleeds into the puzzle. My pen, broken, snapped in half in my fist, leaks it's black blood down my palm. I throw the paper back onto the table, and my name sits between us.

"And he," I say, glaring at the ' Uchiha Sasuke' printed a dozen times on the front article, "is the one that will have to shovel through the consequences. When Konoha is in the shit, he has to protect them. A village that hates him — who won't even let him walk down his own street without them getting scared and writing shit like this about him."

And I hate it, but I feel pity for that sad fuck of an Uchiha. Given the chance to look at him from a different eye, to separate myself from him, that's the first thing I feel. A poor bastard screwed over by his own village — the place he's supposed to call home. The place where his Clan made themselves. What his brother did nearly killed him, but what this village did — it made him feel immortal. It made him feel like everything was dying around him, and he wanted to die with them, but he was forced to stand there and watch as the rotting world left him behind. And he came back. Why did he come back!? If I could, I might write the same things those elders do in the paper. 'Leave Konoha. Don't come back. You don't belong here.'

Ink begins to dip from my arm, staining the carpet.

History Girl lifts, slowly, but not with hesitation. She shakes off her light jacket, comes over, and wraps it around my hand as if I were bleeding.

"And you?" she asks.

I give her a look. "What?"

"When you mentioned the Advisors, you said 'we'." With both hands, she twists the jacket around and cleans the mess of ink. I can already see the black seeping through the thin, light purple cotton. At some point, I release the two halves of my pen, and they get lost in the folds of fabric. "How do you feel?"

When was the last time someone asked me that question?

My jaw locks, and I can't get anything out. I don't know if I should. This is uncommon for me, and History Girl must see this, for she pulls away, pushing her stained wad of fabric against her stomach.

"Sorry," she whispers, smiles. "You don't have to tell me."

My hand is smeared with the gray remains of ink, but there's no dripping anymore. I look down at the newspaper, ruined.

"I'm the only Advisor," I say, "who's against it."

History Girl returns to her chair. Her jacket is pushed into the fold between cushion and armrest. October has turned cold, but not freezingly so. Still, with the days getting shorter and sunset creeping earlier into our afternoons, the evening can be biting, and I imagine how she will feel walking home with nothing to cover her.

"I'm sure he appreciates it," she whispers.

My attention lowers onto the paper once more. I find my name, and my mouth relaxes.

"He'd better."

"So the others want to move money from one department to another." Once again, her file is resting between her hands, but she doesn't dive into it like she often does with her readings. "It's not a good idea because . . . it will weaken Konoha's defenses?"

"It will make us look like idiots," I mutter. "That's for sure."

She shifts, crosses one leg over the other, taking in the information. I don't get what she's trying to do. It's not a test. She can't go home and write an essay about it; and even if she did, it wouldn't solve anything.

"And you are the only one opposed to it."

"The only one with sense," I say.

Her head tips. "Has it already passed? The, um, thing that says money will go from one place to another."

I frown at her. "Where are you going with this?"

Her file presses against her chest, and she blushes. "Oh. Um. Well, I just wondered — if it hasn't happened yet, then you still have a chance."

"A chance?"

"T-To change their minds."

I stare at her, and she shifts again, face flushing a more vibrant pink. It looks hot to the touch. I imagine if I reached over to touch her face, the heat of her body would double mine, and it might numb my fingertips some. Sometimes, it's hard for me to determine what she is. A stranger would imply I know nothing about her, but I know a good amount. She's a Hyuuga. She comes here from 4:25 - 6:45 on Friday afternoons to read through the history section of The Archive. She sinks into her readings, and sometimes, she's so far in that one couldn't tell she was breathing. She's meek, despite coming from a family of miners, and (for some reason) she's adamant on being patient and kind with the enigma Uchiha Sasuke: both the one in the paper and the one sitting across from her. She's not a stranger, but she isn't a friend. Even the term 'acquaintance' doesn't seem right — but whatever she is, she sure has a lot of faith in someone she doesn't even know the name of.

I don't know what to do with that faith.

It's like a piece of history from my ancestors, gifted down the generations until it ends up in my hand. It's sole purpose is to give to someone else, but I have no one to give it to. I just have it.

My smeared hand reaches for the top file on my stack. We're reaching further into the evening, and it's about time I start doing what I always come here to do.

Lifting the thin, manila cover, I say, "I don't have the ability to change anyone's mind."

History Girl remains silent. I don't look up to see her expression. I'm too paranoid at the idea that it might be disappointment.

______

When she leaves, I'm regarding the thin material of her blouse behind the wall of my file. The ink-stained jacket is stuffed under one arm. The heating system is chugging, overworked, but when she opens the door that leads into the basement hallway, a blast of cold hits her, and it whispers against my leg.

Again, I'm picturing her trailing the dark streets home, arms crossed over herself.

I have the mind to tell her to just wear the damn jacket. Who cares if it's stained? No one will notice anyway.

But she's already gone by the time I stir from my reading.

______

The third Friday of October is dull. The chill is the kind to dig deep into your muscles and stay there for a while. Konoha is full of knitted hats and hands stuffed into deep pockets and children blowing their breath into the wind, a light, opaque mist peeling from their mouths. Crowds cluster into heated stores and cafes, too caught up in themselves to notice as I trudge pass. Most of the week has been like this: dreary and cold. It's something I'm used to, something I prefer over the summer heat. Orochimaru was cold-blooded in many senses of the word, but he did not shy away from winter blizzards and temperatures dropping into the negatives. My life, for a while, was following his orders — and that meant doing whatever trivial thing he asked of me no matter the weather conditions. The years have trained my body to handle the cold. It's when I enter the library and push through the wall of rushing heat that I almost stagger, almost tense up in discomfort.

More people are speckled in the main, arching room. Most of the seats are taken, and plenty of the shelves are perused and scoured. Some civilians sit by the windows, breathing hot air against the pane to draw shapes into the fog. Most books are ignored, untouched. It's clear the majority of today's occupants are here to avoid the cold. I spare an eye at the librarians in their circle desks, standing, waiting with tense smiles for something to happen.

I grab the local newspaper, pausing a moment to give the front page a look-over. I don't see my name, so I slip it under my arm and make my way to the staircase.

That's when it happens.

Another change in routine.

It's not the flying opening of the main doors that makes me turn. I pay that no heed. And it's not the following wash of cold against my back. It's not even the paddling trot of footsteps coming closer and closer that gets my attention. Really, for all I care, a group of children have come inside to give the librarians another source of concern. As long as they don't bring their havoc to The Archive, I don't give a damn.

But then I feel something familiar. Something that prods my ninja instincts, so I turn, and I see her.

History Girl, pink-faced, hair a mess, wrapped up in layers of sweaters and coats and a long, hanging, red scarf, stops in front of me with her hands on her knees. She's panting. Did she run here?

I don't need to look at the clock to confirm it is, indeed, 4:00. Twenty-five minutes early from her usual arrival.

And it's strange to see her here. To see her anywhere that isn't the Archive. To see her back against the gray light coming in through the window. To see her not half-hidden in the history shelves or balled up in the seat across from me, barely moving, fingers holding a firm grasp on her book. It's not that she's unrecognizable — but it's like I'm seeing something I shouldn't. Like I'm witnessing History Girl in the outside world, in the annoying, depressing, cold and aggravating world that I come here to escape.

Escape. As if I need it to survive.

I don't, and I definitely don't need her to survive, either. But . . . .

Between swallows of air, she sputters, "Di — Did y-you . . . read it yet?"

We both look at the newspaper under my arm.

"What?"

"You haven't?" She sounds hopeful.

I turn and thud down the staircase, and she follows me into The Archive. It's empty — thank heavens — and I don't bother to go to my usual shelf. I drop into my chair, anchor the paper onto my knee, and flip through the other, unanalyzed papers.

"What did you do?" I ask.

She must have done something. That's the only conclusion. Why else would she seemingly run all the way here, twenty-five minutes early, to see my reaction to whatever is in this paper? What could she have done?

Did she meet that Uchiha?

I stop, for a second, in my searching.

Don't be stupid, I think. I am that Uchiha.

"N-Nothing bad," she says, tugging off her scarf and heavy, navy coat to hang on the back of her seat. She turns and sits, leaning in, and I can feel her eyes watching me, nervous and expectant. It's not lost on me when she adds, quietly, "I hope."

It takes me a long time of flipping. My pride prevents me from asking her what the hell she could have done, so I slow down, start from the very beginning, and read carefully until I get to the fifth page. It's usually a section I don't pay much mind to, full of ads or premonitions from the locals of the neighborhood. People can pay for a spot on Page 5 to get whatever they want published, and it's usually complaints or recipes or anonymous confessions or 'Help Wanted' for mowing grass or trimming trees. The Hyuuga do not live in my neighborhood, so I almost skip it.

Until I see it.

In the second-to-last row, near the middle, I see something unheard of.

Dear Readers,

Let's be a little kinder to Uchiha Sasuke.

A friend of mine is telling me Konoha is struggling. If push comes to shove, we may have to rely on Uchiha-san to protect us, whether we want to or not. To fix the issues of this village, we must gather as a community. That way, we are safe, and Uchiha-san can be unbothered.

H.H.

When I look up, History Girl has left the comfort of her seat and now hides behind the cushioned back of it. The half of her face peeking out from behind it is red, but glowing and hopeful. Her bangs stick to her lashes as she blinks at me.

" You had them publish this?" I ask.

She hides a little more. I can only see her eyes and the dark sweep of her hair.

"I-I wanted to show you," she whispers, muffled. "If I can make them listen to me, then — then I think you can make the other Advisors listen to you."

My thumb presses hard into the paper's weak spine. I feel murky inside, like slush and half-melted ice.

"They won't listen," I mutter. "They won't even read it."

Why am I angry? It's not something to be angry about. It's not an inconvenience. It's not even annoying. Maybe I should feel like a beaten dog who gets the pitying hand of a stranger — and, in some way, I do — but it's not a bad thing. I don't feel pitied, per se. I feel like . . . a genin. I feel like that angry boy, surrounded by my team. They helped me, and they looked out for me, and I usually didn't like it, but sometimes I appreciated it more than anything. And I was angry at everything else but them, and maybe that's why I'm angry now. It's at everything but History Girl.

She does not come out from her hiding spot. I bite my cheek, hissing inwardly. In times like this, I should learn to hold my tongue.

"They almost didn't publish it," she tells me. "I had to convince them."

What could she have possibly said to convince them? In the cold, dark evening of yesterday, with her smudged jacket huddled beneath her heavy coat, scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, when she handed the payment and the note over to the elders, what did she say? 'He's human, too,' maybe. I doubt that would convince them of anything. The humanity of the Uchiha has long since perished in the eyes of Konoha. 'We want to be on his good side' is more likely. A subtle threat. But I can't imagine this girl threatening anyone. Especially not for the sake of a hated man she has yet to meet — or yet to realize she has met several months before.

"I don't know how you could have."

Her eyes flash. "I have my charm."

Slowly, she lifts herself from behind the back of the chair, and she's smiling. Has she been smiling this whole time?

"I'm sorry." One of her hands palms her mouth, trying to smother it, but her face is still flushed and giddy. "I was impatient to see your reaction."

Sighing, I drop the paper and stand.

"Shouldn't you be putting your efforts into better things?"

She follows me to my shelf. I skim the folders, though I know perfectly well where I left off from last time. I grab a couple, and she strays back for a while, staring at the folder going over chakra points. It's still a nagging curiosity of mine why a civilian would be so interested. Though, admittedly, the Hyuuga do home some chakra behind their mysterious dōjutsu. But without the background of shinobi ancestors and shinobi education, they wouldn't know half the basics of chakra. Is that why she is curious? Does she wish to learn more? If so, clearly it's not as important as learning about Konoha. Unconsciously, I drift into the history section, and she comes to my side, grabs her book, and joins me on our return to our seats.

Before she opens her book, she asks, "Do you think it was a bad idea?"

Her eyes aim at the paper.

"I think it was a waste of time," I decide.

"Even if no one reads it, I think it proves something." I give History Girl a look, and she rubs her thumbs down the spine of her ancient book sheepishly. "If someone who is new to Konoha can convince the neighborhood elders to publish a comment in favor of Uchiha Sasuke, then I think you'll have no problem at all with convincing the Advisors to keep the money where it is."

Her positivity is almost sickening, barely digestible. I flip to the first page in my folder, and my eyes hover over the words. I don't read them. I don't even try.

"How did you?" unwillingly leaves my mouth.

She tightens herself in her curled pose against the backrest of the chair.

"My father used to say that people listen the most to confidence rather than power."

Focus sharpening, the words shape on the paper, and we both settle for the rest of the late afternoon. I don't ponder about confidence or convincing or the Advisors or anything of the sort. I don't let it touch my mind. I do the puzzle, and I read, and I pretend that small section on Page 5 doesn't even exist.

But when History Girl leaves, carefully pulling on her coat and tucking her scarf under her chin, she wishes me a good weekend, and then she wishes me good luck, and she looks down her small, pink nose and regards me with a confidence that I don't see on civilian faces often. A confidence only my team would have for me. The look that Naruto had when he found me and decided he'd either drag me back to Konoha or die trying. A confidence not only in one's self, but in me.

The door shuts with a click. I drop my half-finished file and flip over the paper and peel back to Page 5, and I find that almost-missable part, and I read it again, and another piece of it sticks with me.

It says: A friend of mine is telling me Konoha is struggling.

A friend.

Is that how she sees me?

When seven o'clock comes, I tuck the newspaper in the deep pocket of my coat, and I push through the frost in the air and think on my walk home.

______

The next Friday — the first one of November — I have a tick in my knee as I watch the clock jump from 4:25 to 4:26. The door to The Archive remains shut, and that tick crawls up my thigh, my torso, up into my jaw.

She's late.

Only a minute late, but late, nonetheless.

Fridays are our days of strict schedule. Our passage into escape and something similar to relaxation. And some may think following a schedule would be the opposite of relaxation, but not to us. We welcome it. We follow it because it is our peace.

Being late breaks that schedule.

Though, likewise, in some sense, being early does the very same. She had been twenty-five minutes early last Friday, hadn't she? And this irking tick hadn't bothered me nearly as much then.

Not that it's bothering me now.

Why should I care if she's on time or not?

I lounge in my chair and read the paper carefully, examining every paragraph with a quiet but purposeful focus. I even go through the slog of useless information on Page 5 before then going on to the weather report. And with each paragraph I read, I take a momentary glance up at the clock, and that twinge gets more and more irritated as time passes.

I'm almost to the back of the paper when, at 4:36, the door opens.

The long, evergreen skirt of a winter gown flocks around striding legs as History Girl comes in, already undoing the scarf around her neck. Her greeting smile dims into a slightly agape surprise when I stand and march across the room, none too pleased. It's annoying to be annoyed. It's annoying to be annoyed by this girl in particular.

"Where—"

Whatever cutting thing I was about to say falls short and blunt in the air when my eye finds the basket hooked around her left elbow. It's a dull, browning bamboo; something one would bring on a picnic. And from what the old ladies in the paper have written, early November is no time for such a thing. My wonder stuns me into silence, and History Girl wades on her feet, frostbitten face blooming some more.

"It's — um —" She smiles awkwardly, looks up, and asks, "How did it go?"

I know what she's referring to. She had gone through all that annoyance with the paper to make a point to me — and last Friday, when she wished me good luck, it was simple and almost distant, like she knew she didn't have to.

But still, it takes me a second to get my head around it.

"Fine," I say, and that single word relieves something from my body. Just this morning, the Council had met up like they always do, and when money came into discussion, Kakashi had looked across his desk at me, wondering at first if I would speak up, then daring me to. He had that same, confident glint to his eye, and I had spent all of this week working, researching, planning and organizing. Documents about Recon. Articles on previous, post-war efforts and outcomes and historical patterns. A fine-printed list on every negative outcome that would come from defunding the Battle Department at a time like this. Of course I'd speak up. Did he think I was a moron who would waste all his fucking time on something, only to throw it in the garbage when things got heated? "It was fine."

History Girl looks unsure, like she's trying to figure out if I'm underplaying my success or cushioning my defeat.

I let her squirm for a while longer, and then I say, "The Council voted in my favor."

Immediately, she brightens under the artificial light, and her smile is wide and unhidden.

We loom by the door, heat blowing over us. History Girl unhooks the basket from her arm and offers it to me.

"When something good happens," she says, "my aunt would make us yaki onigiri."

But not this batch. Not the onigiri in this basket, offered by this girl. What would the aunt celebrate, after all, from the success of an Uchiha?

"I don't need it."

Her smile stays, though it droops some. "If you don't want it, that's fine."

But she wants me to have it. Why?

Because of what she had written. Because of what the paper had posted on Page 5 last Friday.

'A friend of mine.'

"Is this why you were late?" I murmur.

She doesn't catch it. "Hm?"

I frown, take the basket, and drop it next to my chair before I go to retrieve my folders.

______

"How did you convince them?" she asks an hour into reading, after she stretches and pops her joints and takes a moment to rest her eyes away from the page.

My puzzle is finished, and I'm just starting on my third file that follows the advancement of herbology and its uses for Konoha nin. It's a topic that doesn't grab my attention, nor is it an aspect of shinobi life that I have prior knowledge or interest in. An easy read, but not overly enjoyable, so I'm not disturbed when she suddenly breaks the quiet hum of the heating system.

It's a question that echoes what I had asked her last week, and I don't know if she's aware of that.

"I made an offer." Because what she had said struck something in me. People listen to confidence, and they more often follow it, too. If I could offer Konoha something they are in desperate need of, then most of the Council would have no choice but to accept, no matter if it was something I could see through or not. And I had planned to leave it there, but History Girl leans forward, curious, and I muse for a second, then add, "If they accepted, I'd convince the Hyuuga to help with the wall."

And I watch carefully as her face morphs, and the shadow of dread darkens the undersides of her eyes as my words settle in the air. If I'm being honest, it was a nasty trick on my part — to leverage one of the few people on my side in order to force an agreement out of this stubborn, good-for-nothing Council. I wouldn't be surprised if she snatched the basket full of onigiri and stomped off.

Rather — that's a lie.

I would be a little surprised. Only because I have said detestable things to her before, and she hasn't thrown a fit — hasn't gone beyond taking it on the chin in a manner that makes me feel almost guilty. And that guilt is almost there again. Nearly.

"I don't know about my . . . ." Her voice slips away, and her eyes hover on the floor. "And — and I want to help, but I . . . need to meet him first."

Him being Uchiha Sasuke, naturally.

The sadistic side of me muses about telling her that she already has, that I am him. All this time, all your pathetic fretting has been in the face of the man you so desperately want to meet, to please, to have the favor of. Maybe then she will storm out. Throw her basket of celebration in my face. Leave and never come back.

Do I want that?

What good would come out of making an enemy out of her?

So I keep my mouth shut about it again, and I think this, too, is because of my sadistic side. String her along a little longer. See where that will get you, Sasuke.

"Are you in love with him?" I spit.

If she were Sakura, her face would turn fiery, and she would either shriek her denial or shyly admit it. The first would annoy me, and the second would infuriate me. Would I give her the same lecture I gave Sakura all those years ago? 'You don't love me. You're obsessed with the idea of me, and it's annoying. Leave me alone.'

But History Girl says, simply, "I haven't even met him yet."

A logical answer that doesn't spring any sort of reaction inside of me.

"But you're practically obsessed with him," I tell her.

A little shame pinches her face, and she hugs the book to herself like she always does when she's nervous.

"Because," she whispers, "he's the only one who might understand."

"And I can't?"

It jumps from my mouth, and it smokes in the air, and I recognize that clipped tone immediately. Jealousy. When I was a genin, so much of Konoha did not think of me as one capable of jealousy. I was breaming with talent. A protegee. A genius. The top of the top. What did I have to be jealous of? What did my peers have that I didn't?

Plenty. Family, in terms of Sakura. Power, in terms of Naruto. Maturity, in terms of Kakashi. I grew up aspiring to be my brother, but that was because I was always jealous of how easy things came to him, how my father adored him while, in the same breath, reprimanded me for not being like him. I was the Uchiha failure, and that did not change even when Itachi massacred them all.

Uchiha Sasuke knows about jealousy. It has carved him. Bitten him. Marked him.

But I do not know what I would be jealous of in this situation.

There is nothing to be jealous about.

But it's frigid in my tone, snapping, and I hear it, and so does History Girl. With grace, she fits her book on the table between us, lifts from her seat, and makes her way to the door. She does not leave. She opens it, checks the hallway, shuts it once more, and turns around to face me with a heavy, shaky breath.

"If I show you," she says, "will you think I’m a freak?"

I stare at her, then drop my own files on the table, stacking them on top of her book.

"I can't promise anything." The right thing to do is offer assurance, but I turn to honesty in these situations. False hope can kill someone if they're not careful. "Do whatever you want."

But I am curious, and if she loses confidence, I might put in some effort to convince her.

But I don't think I'll have to. She skitters over like a mouse, shuffling by her seat, not sitting, but looking like she should. Her hands fist her skirt, and her eyes are terrified.

"I feel like a child," she says, laughing weakly. "Facing Konoha's Council must have been scarier than this." She shifts, wrings, wobbles, and shudders. Her knuckles are ghostly. I can't tear my eyes away from her. "Weren't you scared? How are you so brave?"

Another question that rocks me back. Bravery is drilled into shinobi. It's not something we think about. It's expected of us. After a certain point, it almost comes naturally. But to citizens, it must be a battle they face daily — something they struggle to conjure up.

"Bravery isn't the lack of fear," I tell her, "but the ability to face it."

History Girl squares her jaw, trembles, then brings a shaky hand to her face. Her hand forms into a sign I recognize, and after a whisper, her eyes widen, expand, and veins swell and pulse chakra into them. Her dōjutsu activates, spiraling with chakra, and for the first time, I can feel it without having to search. It's cool, combating the hot air blowing from the vents, and it slips down my skin like water.

I stand with her, my own chakra gathering behind my eyes, begging to explore, to analyze.

"My family calls it Byakugan." Her voice is small. "It allows us to see what normal eyes cannot."

I step around the table, coming face-to-face with her — or as close to that as we can get. Again, I find myself surprised that she comes from a family of miners of all things. Her head barely reaches my chin, and I have to tip my head to look into her dōjutsu.

"Like what?" I prompt.

Her eyes look through me like her father's had, and I stop breathing for a moment.

"Muscle, bone, veins," she lists. "Channels. Openings. The major points, and then the others."

Is she fucking with me? No one is able to see the chakra system in an alive body. And if the Hyuuga can, then they wouldn't be measly miners in Iwagakure.

Her head lifts, and she looks at my face, and her dōjutsu flares with wonder.

"I see so much behind your eyes," she says in awe, flushing with curiosity. The cool, water-like chakra evaporates, and the veins sink beneath her skin, and her eyes turn normal — but never again will I be able to look at them and describe them as 'film-like'. Not after this. "Do . . . you have . . . ?"

I step away, finding my breath again. I make sure that my hair is fully hiding my rinnegan, and then I turn away.

"No. Nothing like that."

Chapter Text

I do not stop by somewhere to grab a few ingredients to make something easy-to-cook and slightly nutritious that night. There’s a slight, November drizzle that casts the reflection of the street lamps onto the streets. I walk home, bundled up, slipping in and out of darkness. The weather has made the streets nearly empty. A few bikes hurry past me, but that’s the most I see by the time I reach my estate. I leave my shoes at the front, enter the kitchen, and drop the bamboo basket onto the counter.

Inside, in plastic, triangle-shaped containers that one would expect a mother to pack in her child’s bento box, are yaki onigiri — and from the look of them, they look handmade rather than store-bought. As I remove the five containers from the basket, lining them up on my counter, I wonder when was the last time I ate yaki onigiri. One of my aunts used to make them. Itachi and I would come home from playing out in the streets, and she would have us sit on the engawa and eat to replenish our energy. It’s a distant memory that evokes a familiar taste in my mouth. I set out a plate, place two of the onigiri on it, and save the rest in the fridge. I also plate spinach ohitashi and quickly make up some tamagoyaki, and then I sit, take one of the onigiri, and eat.

And an ease takes hold of my body.

I can smell my aunt’s perfume and the cut grass of a flourishing Uchiha estate; the sweat of an energetic child rolling down my face, oblivious to the dangers of the world. The nostalgia feels so heavy on my chest that I can hardly breathe.

When I finish eating, I clean the plates and the triangle containers, put everything away, and shower off the imagined sweat. I had meant to train in the dojo, but I feel too full and too heavy, so I reside in my room with a single lamp on, sitting on a cushion on the floor with my back against my bed. My mind persuades me to read a childhood book about samurai that I haven’t touched since I left Konoha, and when I reach over to the shelf, I spot something hanging slightly off the top of it.

A newspaper. The local one. A past issue where, on Page 5, an H.H. begs for the locals to have patience for Uchiha Sasuke.

I had meant to throw it away long ago.

But whenever I try, I never find the will to. And tonight is no different. I rest the book on my knee, open to the first page, where a cartoonish illustration of a samurai greets me as if expecting that kid Uchiha to have finally returned, and I read.

______

Monday morning, I eat the last of the onigiri for lunch and contemplate what I am to do about the Hyuuga. My half of the bargain is still to be seen to; they had not, ultimately, cut funds from the Battle Department, so now I am expected to convince the Hyuuga to help build Konoha’s wall. At the time, it had been a spark of the moment. I wouldn’t call it desperation. Rarely does such a word correlate to me. Rather, I felt that in order to get their attention, I would have to offer something they could not refuse. And I did.

But now, I have to actually go through with it.

There is a strategy to finding an agreeable middle ground with the clans of Konoha. My father would spend hours in the meeting room, delegating with this department head or that. Sometimes, he would make me sit next to him and listen, and by the time the meetings were over, my legs would be so sore from sitting that I would have trouble walking for a while. Back then, I didn’t care to listen; now, I wish I did. My father was not the best parent, but he was an outstanding leader.

If the Hyuuga are anything like the Uchiha, they will not agree to anything short of what they expect. But what is it that the Hyuuga want? What do they need that Konoha can offer? My mind drifts to History Girl, to the scared tremble of her body as she revealed her dōjutsu to me. Byakugan, she had called it. There was shame in that moment. She had believed I’d look down on her. ‘Will you think I'm a freak’ she had asked. In Iwagakure, is that what they thought of the Hyuuga? As freaks?

And then she had said . . . that she’d like to help Konoha. But first, she wanted to meet Uchiha Sasuke. Another negotiation. Another deal. When I went to the Hyuuga, they did not care who I was. My name gave them no peace, no interest. But for History Girl, I am her hope, for some reason. My own dōjutsu gives her hope.

Why is that?

Does the answer really matter? This could be my way of getting at least one Hyuuga to help with the wall.

But there enters another issue. Meeting Uchiha Sasuke would mean meeting me. In these past months, I have, intentionally or not, hidden my identity from her. If I were to reveal it to her in order to coax her to help with Konoha’s defenses, how would she react? After several weeks of her spouting about me, musing about me, trying to convince herself to meet me — after all those Fridays of molding me into this heroic figure that would supposedly fix all of her problems — if she found out that, in truth, I am Uchiha Sasuke, wouldn’t she be disappointed? Humiliated? Wouldn’t she think I was stringing her along to make fun of her? If I told her I never said anything before because, truthfully, I liked not being Uchiha Sasuke in The Archive — with her — would she even believe me?

My muscles tighten up. I finish my lunch, clean it away, then start on the stack of paperwork waiting for me.

I ignore the fact that, somewhere deep inside, I’m worried.

What if she gathers her courage? What if, even tonight, she asks one of the elders where she can find Uchiha Sasuke? He’ll give her a weary look before pointing to the estate, and she will go through the gate and step on the engawa and call for me. Uchiha Sasuke? Please. I need to meet you. And when I come, she’ll see the same face she’s seen every Friday for most of the year. She’ll stare, frozen, as if I were a book she’s tucked herself into reading. She has read my name so many times, but this is not the face she had expected. She’ll turn, and she’ll leave, and come Friday, she will not show herself ever again, and my chance of convincing the Hyuuga will be dead in the water.

. . . But is that what I’m scared of? Not convincing her clan?

I don’t think about it any more. I drown myself in paperwork.

But through the week, I stray away from home. After work, I meet with Naruto to listen to him scream karaoke and rant about the recent missions Kakashi’s been sending him on. I stuff myself into a booth in the cafe across the street from the hospital and try not to stare too much at the bags under Sakura’s eyes as she asks about my day and smiles when I lie that it’s been fine, boring. Sometimes, I stop by the house to grab gear or a change of clothes, and I either jog around the village or stop by one of the training grounds. Shikamaru and Ino were there, once, and offered to join me. It was good to train with shinobi who had their own skill set and jutsu, but their stamina and chakra levels were no match if I so much as activated my dōjutsu. Naruto, as it were, was the only one who could really match me, and right now he’s too busy playing hero.

I did whatever I could to not be home. Late into the weekday nights, I’d come to the estate, and I would make sure no one had visited while I was gone.

When Friday afternoon eventually arrives, I do my puzzle and read my files. I am careful to keep my gaze down when I feel her presence. She hasn’t even entered The Archive, but I can feel her coming, hear the slight padding of her feet as she makes her way down the hallway. She comes in, grabs her books, settles across from me, but before she can dive into her reading, I grab the bamboo basket from the floor and set it on the table.

“Here.”

History Girl smiles. “Oh. Thank you. Did you like the onigiri?”

I fill a row in the puzzle. “I washed the containers.”

“Oh. That’s nice.” Her voice drifts, a little unsure. “Is everything alright?”

My mouth folds back in a sneer. “It’s fine.”

She quiets, turns back to her book, and says nothing more. The normal silence of The Archive irks me. What normally calms me is needling me with annoyance today. I’m coming to terms with the fact that, for the entire week, I’ve been running. I shouldn’t, but I did. Which is pathetic and weak, and I am neither of those things. I have trained all my life to be neither of those things. But I was. I am. All because of this girl across from me.

My jaw hurts from the strain. I lose my focus, huff, and drop the paper.

At the very same time, History Girl looks up from her book.

“Do you —”

“Why haven’t you gone to the Uchiha yet?” I stop, realizing I had just cut her off, and lean back into my chair. “Nevermind.”

Her pink face widens in wonder, her mouth shaped in surprise. With ease, she lays the book on her lap, hands atop, pushed slightly together. She’s considering my words. I wish she’d just ignore them.

“I want to,” she whispers, “but I’m scared.”

I frown. “He won’t kill you.”

And she laughs a little, which I didn’t expect.

“No, no. I just don’t want to bother him.” There’s more than just that, I can tell. I’ve been around her enough, talked to her enough, to know when she has more on her mind. When she looks you in the eye, she makes you pay attention, and she grabs you and doesn’t let you go. But when she looks away, like she is now, she’s avoiding something. I wonder if I’ll have to force it out of her, but she speaks before I have to. “And I’m scared he’ll see my eyes and push me away. What if he ignores me?”

Something must have happened in Iwagakure.

Why else would she not see her dōjutsu as what it is: a gift. Something that could help Konoha in ways she couldn’t even imagine.

“I didn’t ignore you,” I tell her.

Her smile is grateful and a little bashful. “But you’re not Uchiha Sasuke.”

And there it is. A chance. So clearly and cleanly laid out for me. All I have to do is comb back my bangs so she can see my rinnegan, and it will all click in place. I’ll tell her it’s moronic to be scared of something so trivial. You’ve been talking to me this whole time. Don’t even think of me as an Uchiha. Think of me in the same way you wrote about me in the paper: a friend.

That’s all I want, I realize.

When did that happen? I don’t even know.

“You don’t know anything about him,” I say, “so why are you assuming he’ll ignore you?”

History Girl blinks, startled. “Well . . . . Do you know anything about him?”

I snort. Slowly, I fall back into routine. I finish the last square of my puzzle before folding the paper between my leg and the chair. The file falls in place, inviting me in, and the quiet no longer nags at me.

“He’s a miserable bastard,” I say.

History Girl asks, “What else?”

So I tell her some things. I tell her that he’s a traitor of Konoha, but he doesn’t really see himself in that sort of light. He left for a good reason. He got stronger. He proved himself. But, at the same time, he left his team behind — the ones who really cared about him. He didn’t see it at the time. He didn’t see it when they would search for him, again and again. He didn’t even see it when they finally got him and brought him back. But now he’s here, and he realizes he was cared for all that time, and he feels a little guilty that he left those people behind. Why don’t they hate me? he wonders. It’s easier to just hate me. And I tell her that he trains in his dojo most days, but sometimes, he trains with his team, and it feels right. It’s a moment in time where, for once, all of Konoha melts away. He’s a mean bastard. Selfish and egotistical. He’s impatient and merciless and not at all kind, but he’s human, and he cherishes things even when people think he’s heartless. Things like yaki onigiri and reading quietly in The Archive.

I don’t say that last part out loud.

History Girl listens intently, never interrupting. When the words die on my tongue and I haven’t anything else to say, she leans forward, presses her hands to her warm face, and says, “I want to meet him.”

I swallow. When I exhale, it feels like everything is leaving my lungs.

“Then go meet him,” I say.

______

The next week passes along dutifully. After work, I go home, and I train in the dojo with the door open so I can listen for the approach of a visitor. I eat at the front of the main building, and I rewrap my bandages on the engawa, the cold of November biting my exposed skin. Whenever Sakura or Naruto ask me to train, I tell them they’ll have to wait until, probably, next week. ‘I’m expecting someone’ I tell them, which makes their faces fall in shock. Aside from them, who else would I be expecting to bother me? Little do they know.

Shizune stops by the office a few times. She asks about my progress with the Hyuuga. I tell her it’s a work in progress. We’re working through kinks in the deal. I’m not exactly lying, and she has no reason to think I am, so she just smiles tightly and leaves. She doesn’t have to tell me that the Advisors are growing impatient. I already know.

Before I know it, it’s Friday, and no one has come to my estate. Huh.

So I wait until it’s 4:25, and I stand just as the door opens. History Girl looks up to meet my eye, surprised.

“Oh—”

“So?” I frown. “How did your talk with the Uchiha go?”

She looks like an animal caught in a trap. Caged up, scared that she’ll be eaten.

“Well,” she murmurs, “I’ve had so much to do. This and that. My sister needed help with setting up the training grounds, and Neji had a new . . . .”

“You didn’t see him.”

She looks away, blushing.

“Coward,” I sigh.

“It’s very daunting,” she says, sliding around me, unwinding her scarf from her neck. Her long hair falls out as she wraps the scarf in a ball and puts it on the round table between our chairs. Then, she hangs her heavy coat before disappearing into the maze of shelves. I follow her, determined to not let her hide. “I want to meet him. Badly. But I can’t push away the feeling that something will go wrong.”

I groan in annoyance. “You’re assuming again.”

“When it comes to my eyes, everything goes wrong.”

History Girl bows her head to meekly avoid my gaze. She takes a book off the shelf, turns to leave for her seat, but I grab her shoulder and push her in the direction of the Konoha Shinobi section. She wobbles, hops back to meet with my long strides, and follows me with a mousy gasp. I take her to the first end of the shelves, search for that familiar file, and when I find it, I drop it on top of her history textbook.

“Give that another read,” I say. “Maybe you’ll start to understand how your eyes can do the impossible.”

“I know what it says.”

“Then why are you so scared of them?”

I can’t understand it. To be able to see the entire chakra system — even a citizen would be able to tell how special that is, how absolutely revolutionary even one individual with such an ability would be. If something did happen to her in Iwa, she’s not there anymore, so why —

Why?

“Th-They’re —” She hiccups and rubs sheepishly at her face, but I see the rising red around her eyes and see she’s on the verge of crying, “ ugly.”

I balk before I can stop myself. Ugly? Who cares about that? She could be the most hideous thing in the world, and I wouldn’t care. Who would when those eyes have that kind of power behind them? The frustration building up in the back of my throat clogs my windpipe, and I force myself to cool down. Not everyone sees the world like you do, Sasuke, I tell myself. Getting upset about it won’t change how she feels, no matter how stupid it is.

. . . And aren’t I being a bit too hypocritical? Isn’t her reason for not liking her eyes close to the reason I’ve grown out my hair to purposefully hide my rinnegan? Ugly wouldn’t be the word I’d use to describe it, exactly, but . . . .

I exhale, my shoulders falling. “Uchiha Sasuke doesn’t care about that sort of thing.”

History Girl nods, but I can’t tell if she believes me or not. “I’m just ashamed.”

“Because of how the byakugan looks?” It’s hard to keep the cold out of my voice, but I manage. “Do you want to attract him?”

She stiffens next to me, and I watch the crown of her head shake. “N-Not really.”

There’s a small, unimportant part of me that feels disappointed by that. “Then it doesn’t matter.”

Her thumbs trace the manilla cover of the file. Still, she’s unconvinced. I hesitate, but only for a second, and then put my hand on her shoulder. Like her arm, it’s not small and fragile. It swells with muscle, but there’s something about it that’s still girlish. I lead her to the seats, separate from her, and sit across from her, one leg crossed over the other. I take a pose of someone who’s about to go against a hearing in a meeting with a bunch of good-for-nothing Advisors: stern and authoritative.

“Show me,” I say.

History Girl curls into herself, rubs her hands together, then activates her dōjutsu. The icy chill of liquid chakra spills from her eyes, and it feels as if she’s looking into all of me, combing through the synapses of my brain to find all my memories, my history.

“Do you see the channels?” I ask. “The points?”

She nods. “Not just yours. There’s more.”

Her gaze turns upwards, into the main branch of the library. To see that far and that accurately is something even my own rinnegan can barely do. Seriously, what was Iwagakure thinking — not making shinobi out of the Hyuuga?

“Do you know how to channel your chakra?”

“What does that mean?”

“Watch me.” I focus on the chakra in my core, pushing it up into my shoulders, down my arms, and into my fingertips until they burn with chakra. Astonished, History Girl sits forward in her seat. As if doing the most basic of things had just blown her mind. “A ninja learns to move chakra through their body when they’re in the Academy. With practice, you could do the same.”

Her eyes stay on me, but I don’t get the sense that she’s looking at me. As if she’s looking inwards, at her own channels and chakra points. As if she’s discovering a part of herself she did not know about, unlocking and finding that there’s more to her than she had originally thought. And despite myself, I feel some pride knowing I was the one that started this, that got her considering.

“If I could teach you how to control your chakra,” I say, “would you want to learn?”

“. . . Would you?” is her soft, feathery whisper.

I smirk. She doesn’t realize how high an opportunity she was just given. Most of Konoha hates me. Some fear me. Plenty ninja want nothing to do with me; but if given the chance to train with me, to learn from me, they’d take it in a heartbeat. The fact she’s not jumping at the chance is a sort of naivety I don’t mind. In fact, I prefer it.

“I can help you with chakra control, and when you understand the basics, then you can meet Uchiha Sasuke.”

And so I’ve done it. An opening. An opening to motivate one Hyuuga, this Hyuuga, into helping Konoha’s defenses; an opening for me to finally reveal my identity. Two birds, one stone. History Girl smiles in a way that I haven’t seen before, in a way that I can’t really put a name to. Something that seems uniquely her. Something that makes her look . . . .

Her byakugan fades. I uncross myself, grab my file, and settle.

______

She wonders if she ought to read something in particular to start studying after she’s finished rereading the file on the history of chakra points I’ve given her. I contemplate this for a while. Though it’s true that basic reading and understanding of chakra would improve her chances of quickly developing chakra control better, I doubt anything in this library would be at the right level for her. For someone of her knowledge, she’d need something akin to the books and lessons we were given in the Academy. I tell her, for now, she’s fine. Next week, I’ll have to look around and see if I can find something for her that wouldn’t completely go over her head.

For the next hour, she returns to her historical readings, and I numbly look over my file, most of my mind drifting off, trying to piece together what sort of material I can get for her. To be honest, not much comes to mind. Growing up as an Uchiha, my clan taught me at a very young age how to control chakra, how to train my fingers to make certain signs, how to use meditation to master control over my body. By the time I was in the Academy, I already knew most of what was taught. I didn’t pay much attention to the books or the lessons. I wouldn’t even know how to structure a lesson plan around chakra. There’s a reason I went for a governmental job over teaching.

Multiple reasons, really.

It’s highly doubtful parents would want their children to learn under Konoha’s traitor.

Before I know it, it’s 6:45, and History Girl is layering up and wrapping her scarf around her neck, hiding the bottom of her chin. She wishes me a good weekend like she always does, stops by my seat, and adds, quietly, “Thank you. For everything.”

Don’t thank me yet. But I say nothing, only nodding at her.

I plan to spend the last fifteen minutes pondering. Perhaps I’ll ask Naruto to get ahold of Iruka for me. Of course, both of them will barrage me with questions I’m not interested in answering, so maybe that’s not such a good idea after all. A headache begins in the back of my head. I reposition and sigh, not looking forward to my weekend being spent on figuring this out.

I’m about to stand to put my files away when the door opens, a gust of cold hitting my side. I glance over, thinking the custodians have come early again, and I’m mildly surprised to see History Girl has returned, looking up at me with a sort of excitement that makes her eyes look lively and alive — even if her dōjutsu is inactive and her chakra remains hidden behind her eyes.

“Come here,” she says, waving me over. “You have to see.”

Did something happen upstairs? I follow her, wondering dully in the back of my head if the staff have started putting out the Christmas decorations. But when we climb the stairs, nothing looks overly jolly. Instead, History Girl leads to the front, to the double-doors, and pushes them open.

And I see, immediately, that it’s snowing.

Ah.

A thin layer of snow lies on the concrete sidewalk, probably to be melted away by tomorrow morning. We see the footprints of people passing by and the fog of our own breaths. Inside, most people don’t seem interested in the snow, and I’m not overly joyous about it, either.

But History Girl stares at the snowy village like she’s found herself in a fairytale world.

Standing next to me, I can almost feel her arm against mine.

“This is my first time seeing Konoha snow,” she tells me. “In Iwa, it usually starts in October.”

My eyes follow the up and down of the rooftops across from us.

“Snow is snow,” I say.

History Girl laughs, her warm breath fogging in a puff at the end of her nose. I look down and see snowflakes clinging to her lashes. Her bangs sweep back with the wind, and despite the gray of the world, she’s colorful and bright. She stands out — every part of her except her eyes, which seem to blend, as if made of snow and ice.

I think about what I had said earlier — or about what I hadn’t said.

Stuffing my hand deep into the pocket of my coat, I say, “They’re not ugly.”

Her head tips towards me. “Hmm?”

“Your eyes,” I mutter. “They’re fine.”

The village is a distinct quiet that, I suppose, can only come with the first snow of the season. Maybe this is why she brought me here: to take it in, to breathe in the sharp cold and breathe out heat. To stand on the steps of the library and see nothing but stillness and the tranquil fall of snow. As if everyone, for once, is at peace.

When I look back at her, her face is entirely red. So red it’s nearly impossible to find where the scarf ends and where her skin begins. Her fingers wring together, nervous, but not frightened.

“Thank you.” It’s muffled, but I hear her.

I look out at the village, breathe in the cold, and feel it melt and steam inside of my lungs.

______

The last Friday of November, I stop by the Academy before I go to work. The snow has stopped since the weekend, but the cold remains, unwilling to leave until the next year when spring comes. I walk through the gate, which feels smaller and more narrow than what I remember, and head towards the building in the back of the grounds. The sound of yelling and talking and kunai hitting wood echoes from the back, and when I turn the corner, I see the students practicing their aim, small arms stuffed into puffy jackets. Their instructor, Aburame Shino, is someone I know faintly. His team and mine shared a few missions when we were genin, and due to his ability to control insect, he’s a standing member of both the Spying Division and Search and Retrieve. Along with his teammate Inuzuka Kiba, they make up some of Konoha’s best search nin, and he’s come to plenty of meetings with me and Intelligence.

A beetle lands on the sleeve of my coat, signaling that he’s aware I am here. I watch Shino help a student hold his kunai correctly, and then he wanders over to me, standing by my side with his eyes staying on the children.

“When I got your letter,” he says, “Kiba had been there. He had been sure you were pranking us.”

There’s a slight edge of amusement in his otherwise droned tone. Shino isn’t the kind to express himself outwardly. He is quiet and keeps to himself, and I do not mind working with him when I get the chance. He’s not a bother — unlike that infamously annoying Inuzuka.

“That’s far from the case,” I mutter.

He nods. “I’ve gathered some material. You can go through the door and find it on my desk.”

The door in question is just behind us. He unlocks it for me so I can enter. Just as he’d said, there are a few books stacked on the desk. I look over the titles, recognize none of them, and stuff them between arm and torso before rejoining him outside. The students have begun to notice me. It’s time for me to leave.

“How do you want me to return them?” I ask.

He takes a moment to think. “Just send a letter. I’ll come to your office to take them.”

Easy enough for me. I nod, turn to leave as he starts for the students — and then we both stop as a body of chakra barrels at us from above. Chakra that, sadly, both of us recognize. I groan under my breath and lift my head to see the Inuzuka sitting off the edge of the Academy’s roof, legs swinging. His giant dog is with him, panting happily. It leaps from the building, and the students laugh excitedly and instantly circle around him.

“Kiba,” Shino says, low in warning.

“Caught ya just in time, Uchiha!” The Inuzuka, as previously mentioned, is starkly opposite of Shino: loud, obnoxious, and annoying. He’s too much like Naruto, sharing all his bad qualities without also sharing any of the good ones — which, to be fair, Naruto does lack in. From what I understand, their third teammate has gotten herself a position in the hospital. Escaped a chaotic team through training as a medic-nin, like Sakura. There seems to be a trend there. “What the fuck are you doin’ with Academy-level texts on chakra? Feelin’ like you need a good study, you bastard?”

Inuzuka barks in laughter while Shino heaves a sigh.

“It’s not your business, Kiba. Why? Because it doesn’t matter why he needs it.”

Inuzuka, artfully ignoring him, leers down at me. “I seriously can’t believe it wasn’t a joke. What does someone like you need those books for anyway?”

“Stick your nose somewhere else, Dog,”I drone.

“Yikes. Pissy today, ain’t ya?”

“ Kiba.” Shino marches to the students, who are wide-eyed and snapping their heads whenever one of us speaks. “Watch your mouth.”

I turn and make my way out, listening to Inuzuka’s dramatic sigh.

“Fine. Don’t tell me. Oi, Shino. Listen. Remember that girl we met . . . .”

Eventually, his obnoxious voice fades away, and I exhale in relief.

______

With the books, the next few Fridays are spent studying. History Girl arrives in The Archive at 4:25 on the dot, and after peeling off several layers of clothes until she’s just down to a sweater and pants, she maneuvers her chair around the oval table and situates herself next to me. She spends most of her time reading. At first, she’d been embarrassed that her reading material was so . . . elementary, but after seeing how efficiently the books explained chakra and the chakra system, her worries had quickly vanished.

Afterwards, I would quiz her, and then we’d train chakra control with her byakugan activated. The first Friday was a little rough. Because her channels beyond her eyes had never been used before, they were tender and sensitive when chakra would suddenly be pushed through them. History Girl had felt like she had been burned from the inside, wincing in pain and forcing the chakra back behind her eyes. I had forgotten about such an issue. While it’s true that regular training is expected from a ninja to avoid this very thing, it’s a lesson far back in the past for me. I hadn’t realized what was happening until I could feel it burning down her neck, skin flushed red and angry. We had stopped there, and by next Friday, I had found certain types of meditation that would supposedly relax the channels and ease chakra through them.

We had sat on the floor directly across from each other. I echoed the mantra that would help her focus, and I watched, for a while, as her eyes shut and her mouth barely moved with her whispered words. My rinnegan spinned to life, and I made sure her chakra moved smoothly, like water rather than fire, down her neck and towards her chest, where one of the major chakra points reside. The quiet helped her focus, and I, unconsciously, enjoyed the sight of her relaxed expression before me.

History Girl, despite her circumstances, advanced quickly. Through the week, she would meditate and practice moving her chakra from one part of her body to the next. Because of her small amount of chakra — about a fifth of the average amount a shinobi has — it takes time to channel, and it’s more exhausting at her early stage; but still, she practices. And on Friday, she returns again, ready to read and to practice under my careful watch.

The first time she moves her chakra in a cycle through her whole body, touching on all of the major points, she grins at me, excitement shaking through her body. The glow of her dōjutsu strikes me, and I have to swallow a blot of something caught in my throat.

She’ll be meeting that ‘Uchiha Sasuke’ before I know it.

And things go smoothly. Shizune still comes every now and then, asking for updates on my progress with the Hyuuga. My answers become more and more believable, and her smile becomes less and less forced when she meets me in my office.

It’s a week before Christmas when things change. Again.

I come with the last book on chakra control. An unsent letter to Shino, informing him that he may come pick up the books whenever it works best for him, lays on my desk in the darkness of my office. Today should be the last day of training, and then I can send it to him. I distract myself with Sudoku and overlooking what the elders have to say about the approaching holiday. The weather is getting colder, and yet there’s warmth in the air. The library is fully decorated; as are most spots in Konoha. It’s hard to ignore, but I tell myself it will be over before I know it.

I’m reading over a section of the paper talking about the upcoming festival when 4:25 strikes the clock. On time, as per usual, History Girl enters. She greets me with a smile and pulls her chair next to mine, and as I reach over to hand her the book, I spot something that she places on her lap.

A magazine.

Following my gaze, she pinkens some. “Oh, sorry. I grabbed this on my way here.”

There’s a display of different types of festive yukata and kimonos on the glossy front. It looks like the one Sakura forced me to look through to help her find one to wear to the festival. She had already asked Naruto and dropped all his suggestions, so I was her last chance at getting a ‘man’s opinion’, as she called it.

Nose curling at the memory, I ask, offhandedly, “Are you going to the festival?”

History Girl’s bright gaze almost dances in the artificial archive light. “I am. Um, s-someone asked me to go with them.”

I flip through the book to find the chapter near the end where she had left off last time. “That’s nice.”

“I don’t really have one for the occasion,” she continues, “but he and I promised we’d dress up.”

I think I find the chapter, but as I hand it to her, my mind catches onto her words.

He?

She’s going with a man?

I frown, yanking my arm away when she takes the book from me. Who cares who she goes with?

Well, the beginning bites of jealousy in my chest tell me I do, but there’s no reason why I should. She can go with all of Konoha’s male population for all I care! And, most likely, she’s going with a family member. That cousin of hers, perhaps. Whatever his name is.

. . . But what if she’s not?

I tilt my head and look at those displayed kimonos again. One of them is a dark red with white poinsettia decorating the sleeves and obi. I try to imagine her in the crowd of the festival, hair pinned in an updo, wearing that kimono. My stomach tightens, so I force my eyes away.

“You’re really going?” I mutter, mostly to myself.

Her face lifts and nods. “Are you?”

For some reason, I feel bitter. I clench my jaw to hold back a scoff.

“It’s not my thing.”

“Ah. I understand.”

She returns to the pages, and I stare at her profile, frowning.

Chapter Text

Christmas Eve, if one were to search Konoha and find Uchiha Sasuke, they would think him a sad, depressed man. At work, there’s a chilly cheer in the air that does not seem to encroach on his shadowy, unfestive office space; even the Advisors and the common man spend their breaks laughing and chatting about their children, the ornaments on their trees, the snow-carved sidewalks and the streets closed a few blocks away for the festival starting that evening. And then, after a slew of ‘Merry Christmas’es, that same, sorry Uchiha plods down the icy streets, and he sees the blocked off area and the people setting up stands and booths and decorating the large tree in the middle of it all. He gives it a dismissive peer, and then he’s off to The Archive — where, come 4:25, he’s the only one there, reading his boring papers and finishing up his boring puzzles. Alone for the first time in a while on a Friday afternoon.

History Girl is probably getting ready for her date. Like a tree, she ornaments herself, hanging silver off her ears and pinning beads and clips to her hair.F

And when 4:25 turns to 4:26 — 4:30 — 4:45 — that sad Uchiha that I’m sure everyone would frown in pity at if they saw him, stubbornly stays in his seat and tells himself, for the nth time, that he will think of that girl no longer.

But then the clock turns, a minute passes, and in-between the lines of text and ink, I see the off-white hue of her eyes, and I clench my jaw and throw my head back in agitation. It has nothing to do with me. Probably, in Iwa, those Hyuuga were too busy deep within the mines to celebrate any sort of holiday. So, naturally, she would jump at any chance to go to her very first Konoha festival. Anyone could have asked her, and she would have said yes. An elder of the local paper. A kid from the Academy. Even me.

But, I remind myself, that has nothing to do with me.

Naruto had come this morning, bright and early, to drag me into the Hokage’s office so he could ask both Kakashi and I at the same time if we could make time tonight to celebrate. Sakura, by a miracle, had managed to get the evening off. Sai would also be free. Naruto had suggested, at first, that we would go to the festival, then saw my face and offered, instead, we just had dinner and a few drinks somewhere. And when I shot down the invitation with a void ‘no’, I wasn’t satisfied by the disappointment in his face before he quickly covered it up with faux anger. Even now, the nips of guilt still linger in my head. But I can’t see myself going. Not with all of them. Not with a team that I had abandoned — who replaced me.

That’s not it, I have to remind myself. And on good days, I believe it. I remember how hard they worked to get me back. They always cared. I wasn’t replaced.

But on other days, it’s hard to get it into my brain.

And even if they did replace me, do I have the right to complain? This string of thoughts irks my attention. I sigh, rub my forehead, and try to forget all this misery in my only sanctuary. This is half the reason why holidays irritate me. Civilians think a gloomy, distant person like me can’t find joy in cheer and comradery, and I suppose they are partly correct. The cold and the festivities bring a sense of togetherness — something that, still, I do not believe I deserve. Which makes me sound pathetic, like a man stuck in a cycle. Which brings frustration, annoyance; and before I know it, I’m stuffed away in an archive, sneering to myself, no longer able to dive into my readings.

It’s a little after five when the nagging mists away, clouding and steaming like warm breath against winter’s cold. There is a pleasant feeling buzzing at the back of my skull, and it takes me a second to realize it’s the small amount of soothing chakra harnessed behind History Girl’s eyes. My attention snaps to the clock, then to the door. I didn’t think I’d see her today, so why —

The door creaks open. Unconsciously, I stand, the paper slipping off my knee and landing on the floor. History Girl ducks in, face a healthy pink, and I can’t tell if it’s from the cold outside or from make-up — because her mouth is painted red, too, and there’s a shimmering touch of something on the end of her nose. She’s completely dressed up, and I stare at the reality of her. The kimono I saw last week on the front of her magazine was the image that had stuck in my head to this day, and when I look upon the real kimono she wears — white and silver, with a wine-purple obi — it’s almost hard to process.

Cotton gloves protect her hands, and wooden sandals clack against the floor as she comes a little further into The Archive. As expected, her hair is pinned up, and my eyes follow the line of her neck before I force myself to look away.

“Good,” she breathes, “you’re here.”

Where else would I be? But when I think about it, there are plenty of places I could be. I’ve chosen the most isolated way to spend my Christmas Eve, haven’t I? “I thought you would be at the festival.”

She smiles, the red of her lips stretching out. “I’m going after this. I, um, just wanted to give you this before . . . um . . . .”

Only then do I notice a small, silver paper bag hanging between her hands. The strings are made of green ribbon, tied into a loose bow. Her sandals thud dully against the carpet when she comes over to my area of The Archive. Only when she’s closer do I see the natural glow of her face, not put on by make-up, but rather a reaction to the cold and her own timidity. It reaches her neck, dipping under the collar of her kimono. She shifts under my eye. It’s hard to look away.

“Here.” History Girl holds out the paper bag, face slightly bowed. “Sorry. Some of the things are silly, but . . . I wanted to give you something.”

My fingers wrap around the green ribbon, and I lift the gift out of her hands. There’s a slight weight to it. I can’t imagine what she could have gotten me. Honestly, the idea of her getting me anything never crossed my mind. Perhaps because, in my head, we are still strangers that simply share space in The Archive. Because when we go home, we don’t think about each other. We go about our day. The week starts, and we work, and we eat, and we go home and sleep through the night and wake up to drag ourselves through the next day.

But even that’s not true. When have I left this place and not thought of her? It was easier to dismiss her before we started talking — before she meekly asked to sit across from me when the custodians came early to clean that day. But now, I can’t go a week without thinking about her. I’ll go home, and I’ll think about how she wants to know Uchiha Sasuke and how stupid and . . . endearing that is. I’ll think about the Hyuuga and their annoying pride and how she doesn’t seem to represent them in the slightest. I’ll go home with her onigiri, and on my bedside table is a paper where she writes how I’m her friend. Because that’s how she sees me. I’m not a stranger to her.

And, maybe, when she goes home to her family, to those blank walls of the Hyuuga, she might think of me. Between meditation and Uchiha Sasuke, she might think of me.

So, of course, she’d give me something like this.

“I —” don’t have anything for you. I look back at my seat, and there’s nothing but my files, my heavy coat on the chair, and the paper on the floor.

History Girl adjusts her gloves, pinching the cuffs and tugging them up her wrists.

“You can open it later,” she says. “I just wanted to give it to you now.”

Before I say anything, a blast of chakra grinds into my side from the hallway. I frown while History Girl, oblivious, stares in confusion.

“OI!” calls someone from the hallway. A man. “We should get going soon!”

Ah. Her date.

My frown curls into a scowl. History Girl blushes a deep red, fidgets, then gives me a quick bow.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispers. “See you next week.”

I have no necessary wish to say the same thing back, though I should. I’m just being a bastard for no good reason. But she doesn’t seem to expect anything from me, only offering a small smile before she disappears into the hallway. Her small ounce of chakra is overwhelmed by the other, and as it drifts, I fall into my seat, drop the bag onto my lap, frown, pinch the ribbon between my fingers, and finally give in. The ribbon loosens as I pull it out of its bow, allowing me access to the gifts inside. One by one, I pull them out: a pocket planner with a nice, leather cover, a black mug with “Konoha’s Best Shinobi” written in white on the side (which, in a way, does lift my sunken mood slightly), a few plastic-wrapped candy canes, and a letter within a plain, white envelope. I cringe slightly at the thought of a glittery, over-the-top card (which Sakura likes to splurge on) or something totally ridiculous (which I’ve gotten enough of from Naruto). But I’m instead greeted with a simple, mint green card. Inside, there are illustrations of mistletoe in the corners, and I press my thumb into the spine as I read what is written inside.

At first, I was going to start this off with an apology, but I later went against that notion. Instead, I acknowledge I do not know enough about you to gift you anything meaningful, but I still felt that not gifting you anything would be an insult to the kindness you have shown me. The planner, I hope, will help you manage all your important meetings into the next year. The cup is tacky, but you are a shinobi, aren’t you? And I do not know your candy preference, so I figured something fitting the season was the safest option.

Thank you for your kindness and patience with me. I wake early in the morning to get away from my family. I meditate and feel something seep inside me. With every passing day, I feel more confident and more in control of myself, and that’s all thanks to you.

I do not know if I can ever be much help, but when I have mastered chakra control, I want to use my dōjutsu in whatever way you see fit. If that means fixing the wall, so be it.

I find myself in great debt to you.

I’m a little ashamed by this, but I also couldn’t ask for a better teacher and friend.

Merry Christmas, and stay warm.

H.H.

A waft of peppermint hits my nose. I jump to my feet, rush into the hallway, up the stairs, and slip through a crowd of heavy coats and scarves and knitted hats, searching. I reach the glass doors, push through, and see sleet, hanging lights from the buildings across, and the red faces of passing civilians.

I’m too late.

She’s already gone.

______

Come seven, the library is close to closing. I leave just as the custodians arrive, gaggling, obviously excited to be off early for the holiday. Paper bag in hand, I make a turn in the streets away from the Uchiha estate, follow the pole lines to an unimpressive apartment complex, step up the familiar, metal stairway that is covered in ice salt, and knock on a door that hasn’t seemed to change in ages. When Naruto opens the door, his confused expression forces me to mutter that, somehow, my schedule has opened up. His grin irks me, yet comforts me at the same time, and he slings an arm around my neck and drags me in. Sakura and Sai are already inside, and he tells me they’re just waiting for Kakashi to get off, and then they’re off to Choji’s place.

I sit on a floor cushion next to the kotatsu. Sakura offers me tea, and her green eyes swim when she catches sight of the bag I’ve brought with me.

“Is that yours?” she asks.

I take the cup. The tea is fresh with peppermint. I can feel my senses open up.

“Someone gave it to me,” is all I admit.

Needless to say, the rest of the evening is a collection of Kakashi and Naruto trying to sneak peeks inside and try to figure out who was brave enough to give Uchiha Sasuke a gift.

______

Come the rest of the week, the frigid and less-festive hours following Christmas, dragging into the New Year, the visitors of my office have become aware of the new items on my desk. The Head of the Battle Department enters for a weekly review, and when he stands before my desk with my eyes scanning over his reports, I can feel his attention wander to the mug on my desk. I have yet to use it for its true purpose, instead having it as a holder of pens, of the several peppermint canes that also came in my gift. If it were in any other office — the one of the common man, perhaps, who still tends to yap about the excited faces of his grandchildren when they woke Christmas Day to gifts under the tree — then such a sight would be of no concern to others. But my office, as it were, is a pit of ordinary normalcy. Even the simple existence of candy canes seems out of place for it.

The Head did not make any motion to vocalize his thoughts, thankfully, but when . . . other guests would arrive, I would not be given the same luxury. Naruto, after visiting Lord Kakashi for an overview of a particularly important mission he will be given come the New Year, enters my office on Tuesday with a hop in his step and a hungry grin. I know, just by the look of him, that he’s eager for lunch, and I’ll be forced to accompany him. I tell him with a sigh to let me finish up reading over a document from Finance — of course — and, like the Head of Battle, as Naruto waits at my desk, he spots the candy, then the mug they are set in.

“That’s new,” he points out.

I roll my eyes and say nothing to him. I’m nearing the end of the document when he turns the cup around, showing off the white text, and snorts.

“Who the hell gave you this?”

Nerves in my jaw creaking, I push his hand away and return the mug to its rightful spot. “We’re leaving.” 

And thus the rest of the week flows in this manner: people come into my office, spot the mug or the candy or the new planner that I keep on top of my desk, waiting to be used as soon as the New Year comes, and they are stunned, for a moment. Because even small things that are added to my abode seem so uncharacteristically out of place. And they stare, and if they’re brave, they ask, and I artfully avoid the question and keep the line of conversation strictly to why they’ve appeared in my office in the first place.

Friday arrives sooner than I expected. The normal lag of the week between holidays does not come. Perhaps because of how often I was annoyed. Perhaps because, for the most part, my only time of aloneness was after work, in my dojo. I take lunch with Naruto once more in the early afternoon. There are rotating heaters near the seats at Ichiraku’s, and Naruto yanks off his gloves and breathes happily on his hands before ordering a bowl of miso. I follow suit, the wind pushing against my back, trying its best to freeze me. There’s a look to Naruto that I’ve seen plenty of times: a desperate wish to talk, to spill something secretive. I have an idea that it relates to this important mission that Kakashi had assigned him just earlier this week. A mission he has probably sworn to not speak of, which is a hard task for him.

We’re given our bowls. Naruto breaks his chopsticks apart, shifts in his stool, then finally turns to me.

“One thing —”

“No,” I drone.

His mouth pinches in frustration. “Just the location. Nothing else, okay? Not even the ranking!”

“If Kakashi has assigned it to you specifically, then I already know it has to be at least A-Rank.” At the sight of his face, I know I’m correct. I break my own chopsticks and stir the noodles and broth around. “It’s as if ‘confidential’ is just a suggestion to you.”

He mutters and grumbles, but his sour mood is quickly lifted when he takes a mouthful of ramen. The warm food brings color to his face, and he sighs and smiles.

“I just figured you’d be curious,” he says idly. “It’s where that new clan is from. Y’know, the ones you want help from.”

The Hyuuga. Which means — “You’re going to Iwa?”

He grins at me. “Told ya. Curious, right?”

And, to my irritation, I am. Konoha and Iwa, while not aggressive enemies, aren’t on the most steady of terms either — unlike our relationship with, say, Suna. While Suna and Konoha exchange goods and shinobi efforts and money and material for projects often, Iwa is a little more strict. Their stone and ore make a fair trade with our lumber and cattle, but they are a secluded village that tends to rely on themselves and their own strength and people, rather than the aid of other villages. It’s not to say they are distrustful of outside influence, but rather determined to combat their own internal issues before looking to external aid. For Naruto to be assigned to something A-Rank or above at such a place, Iwa must be desperate, and a part of me wonders if it has anything to do with the leaving of one of their most powerful clans.

I eat in silence, the warm noodles resting on my tongue before I swallow.

Naruto, already finished with one bowl, drinks the remaining broth before slamming it down and asking for another serving. “That’s all I’m sayin’. You ain’t getting another word from me!”

“Haah. Naruto keepin’ secrets? Has hell frozen over?”

I had long since located the new chakra slowly approaching us, but it’s the voice that stiffens the muscles in my back. I know that voice. More than simply knowing the face of the person — I know it. Just last Friday, it had called to History Girl from the hallway; the very voice belonging to the one who had taken her to the festival.

My neck cranes back, and I glare at Inuzuka Kiba.

Naruto, about to dive into his second bowl of ramen, gives the dog a cunning look. “That’s right! And no matter how you or Sasuke beg, I ain’t sayin’ nothing!”

Inuzuka sits on the other side of Naruto, leaning over the top of the bar to catch my eye.

“What’s got you so curious about Iwa?” He thinks, blinks, then hums. “The Hyuuga?”

I turn my attention to my bowl and ignore him. The Inuzuka huffs, but doesn’t make a scene, instead prodding and poking at Naruto for the fun of it rather than being genuinely curious about the secret mission. And even if he were, all three of us know that such information cannot be spread.

They argue, and when I finish my bowl, the broth suddenly tastes sour.

______

Two chairs face each other in The Archive. I sit in one, back straight against the upright cushion, my hand resting on the armrest, as if in leisure. In the other chair sits History Girl. Her knees are pushed slightly into the edge of my seat, legs between mine so she’s as close as she can get without being on top of me. I notice, in this close distance, that when her dōjutsu is activated and her face is slightly flushed, there’s a slight shine of chakra to the swollen veins around her eyes. My rinnegan aches to activate, but I keep it at bay, instead using my keen senses to feel her own chakra slowly maneuvering through her system. With her byakugan awake, there’s a slim amount of chakra left, and it takes great concentration from both of us: her in moving it, me in sensing it. What gives it away is how the hairs on her arm stand as it moves down to her palm, where it rests, before she grits her teeth and tries to push it into her pointer and middle finger. Her breath is strained. When I look at her tense expression, I’m nearly floored.

“I can’t,” she whispers.

I frown. “Quitter.”

Her face brightens. She tries again. If I were to put my hand against hers, I think I’d be able to feel the small amount of chakra buzzing under her skin.

Her shoulders fall in fatigue, and she lets out a long exhale. “It’s too small,” she says. “It won’t go through.”

I scoff and lift my hand. “Watch.”

With her byakugan, History Girl observes my chakra slipping from my core with ease, rushing through the channels and points in my right arm, collecting in my palm, then gathering into the tips of my fingers.

“Don’t try to put all of it in your fingers at once,” I remind her. “Even with your smaller amount, the channels here are thin. Let it through slowly. A little at a time.”

She grimaces in concentration, focuses on her chakra, on the flow of it, and tries to push it through once again. And this time, it works, for I notice the slightest glow at her fingertips and the excitement in her dōjutsu.

“O-Okay,” she says, holding back a smile. “What’s next?”

I offer my left shoulder with a slight dip forward. After weeks of practicing control and meditation, I’ve decided it’s time that History Girl starts to really use that byakugan of hers. With her ability to see the chakra system, she’ll be able to block points more accurately; a feat that should be worked on as soon as possible. Were I an instructor at the Academy, I’d be skipping a good amount of steps; but I’m not, and History Girl is not a student.

. . . Well, in some cases, she is.

“Do you see the major chakra point in my left shoulder?”

“I do.” She nods.

“Blocking that off, you’d be cutting my control to my arm. In most cases, I would not be able to use it, and my flow of chakra would be cut off, rendering the arm useless.” The corner of my mouth quirks into a smirk as I look down at myself. “But as you can see, this is not most cases, for I have no arm to render useless. That’s why I want you to take that chakra in your hand and block that major point you see.”

History Girl tips her head back, visually worried. “I will not harm you?”

I bite back a cocky smile. “You will not.”

“And I have enough chakra to block the point?”

In most cases, more chakra would be required for such an action — but that is more so due to a lack of accuracy than anything else. Because of her dōjutsu, I suspect her amount of chakra would be just fine.

“You do,” I say.

History Girl hesitates, but only for a moment more, before leaning in closer, her face hovering close to my shoulder. I can see the crown of her head, the part in her hair. Her fingers inch upwards, nervous and careful.

And then she says, suddenly, “Can I ask about it?”

The needles of chakra prod the end of my missing arm. I know what she refers to. “Fine.”

Her hand floats around my shoulder. “How did you lose it?”

I do not often reflect back to that period of time. The before and the after are moments I remember clearly. Sometimes, I dream of them: of Itachi’s death, of my rage, of how stifling it all became when I was dragged back. My spite and my hatred did not leave just because of Naruto or my old team. Still, to this day, it rumbles inside of me. But I’ve managed to contain it, to release it when necessary. I’ve learned when to ease it and when to use it to my advantage. Becoming a part of the Battle Department had helped me find an out, a tool of which to use this power and experience of mine in a way that I, for once, had no faults with — that, come a decade later, I felt I would not regret.

But the moment of losing my arm is a distant blur; one I do not wish to uncover, to sharpen back into focus.

All that matters is that I lost it. I can, in a way, get it back, but I choose not to. Having my arm would mean I would have to think back to then, to remind myself why and how I lost it in the first place. And that will do me no good. Not while I’m still in Konoha.

I tell her, “In the war.”

And that should let her fill in the blanks herself. Shinobi from all over had lost something during that war: if not an arm, then a leg, or an eye, or a comrade, or a friend.

“Sorry,” she murmurs.

“Were you the one that cut it off?” I drone.

“N-No. I mean — sorry to ask about something sensitive.”

The clothes are proving an obstacle for her. I can tell she’s worried that it will muffle her chakra and make it impossible to block my point. I unbutton the top of my shirt, which catches her attention along with her breath, and I smirk and move the material down my arm so she has easy and unblocked access to my shoulder. Now, the worry is gone, but her timidity heats her face.

“Then shall I have my revenge?” I wonder. Her face tips up, byakugan staring at me. “Tell me about your date.”

“H-Huh?” Her shoulders curl. “Date?”

I don’t take back my words, but rather dive deeper. “Christmas Eve.”

History Girl’s hand shoots forward, her fingers prodding into my skin. I feel her chakra arrowing into my chakra point, and it cuts off within the second. My left side tenses, and the phantom pains of my missing arm subside.

She has successfully blocked me.

History Girl examines the point, the stop of chakra, and sits back in her chair.

“It wasn’t a date,” she says.

And I think, somehow, I can feel that small sliver of her chakra in my body. Water against the crack of lightning. Rain. A storm nestled into my shoulder.

My own relief aggravates me. I tell her to focus, to come close, for she will have to unblock it as well — if only to get the bit of herself out of me.

______

At 6:45, History Girl does not leave.

After unblocking my chakra point, we carried on with our usual schedule. Over-exerting her system would only damage her progress, so I had decided that training, for now, would remain at meditation and basic levels of chakra control. We took our spots, files and textbooks in hand, and relished in the silence.

Then it comes for History Girl to pack up, shuffle on her winter gear, and leave. But she doesn’t. Her book lands on her knee as she slowly tangles her body out of her normal reading position, but she does not lift from her chair to escape to the shelves. Her nails play against the hardcover, and she waits until, eventually, I look up, and our eyes meet. The heating system rumbles.

“It’s New Years’ Eve,” she announces.

It rings on me. I hadn’t forgotten it was that day, of course, but it felt so distant. Today has been muddled and busy, my mind snapping from one thing to the other. Today’s date did not strike me as anything but another passing day until this girl sits straight in her chair across from mine and states such.

My mouth pulls back, but I am neither smiling nor frowning. “That’s right.”

History Girl rubs the heels of her boots together. “Do you . . . have plans?”

I am not so socially inept as to not read the room and figure where this situation has led. While my time of being Konoha’s favorite is long in the past, I still remember the days of girls gathering the courage to ask me out and flirt with me. It had been such a drag back then, an annoyance that I dutifully faced with cold aloofness and not an iota of reciprocation. A question like this always leads to that sort of situation, but to say I’m not surprised would be a lie.

“What are you asking?”

Her timidity burns her face. If she went outside at this exact moment, I would think steam would waft around her.

“I’m asking if you’d like to spend New Years’ with me.” It stops there, but only for a second; then, she adds quickly, “If you’re free, of course. And want to. O-Of course.”

My mind circulates in questions and wonders, and they bundle up and separate at too quick a speed. For a moment, a flashing second, my head goes blank. Then, I grab the ends of my thoughts, and I pull them in and try to make do with what I have. One question of mine is why she isn’t celebrating with her family — and another is why, of all people, she would ask me. But the main area of my focus circles this curiosity of mine that, now planted in my head, I cannot get rid of: what would it be like? To be around her beyond The Archive. Not just to look at snow, but step into the outside world with both feet with her next to me. What would we do? What is there to do? Because, whether I like it or not, History Girl has embedded herself to my sanctuary. When I think of escape, I think of The Archive, the ancient smell of faded ink and old parchment, the white noise of the heating as I work at my puzzles; I think of the newspaper, of the files, and her. Her in her folded posture, reading every line of her book like it’s gospel. And I don’t bring my sanctuary outside of its designated spot. The files go back in place. The papers, for the most part, are recycled. The only change in routine is that damn paper, and it should stay like that. To change too much could ruin the whole system of peace.

And yet, at the same time, I want to make another exception.

“I usually leave at seven,” I say.

History Girl checks the clock before nodding. “Okay.”

“ . . . We can get something to eat after this.”

“O-Okay.”

Those short, fifteen minutes elongate, balmy in the chugging heat, collecting into the corners of my fingers. My hand sticks to the delicate parchment, and I find myself drying my palms on my slacks every now and then. We read quietly, not looking at each other. I can’t tell if it’s purposeful or not. At seven, we both stand, and I’m vaguely shocked that she’s there. But . . . of course she is. Together, we put our readings away, cover ourselves in our winter coats, and I hold the door open and let her pass by. I drop the paper in the recycling bin by the doors. History Girl secures her scarf to her neck, knotting it. The Christmas snow has melted away, leaving grey slush in the corners of the streets, but it’s still below freezing this evening.

When we step out, the wind gnaws into my face. History Girl, small, has already begun to shiver.

I ask, “Do you want something in particular?”

She shakes her head, so I motion for her to follow. We take the turn away from the Uchiha estate, and I listen to her feet hitting the pavement behind me, rhythmic and steady like a heartbeat. I think for a long time. To be honest, I’m not really sure where to take her. It’s not as though I’m trying to impress her with something richly Konoha, comfortable and varied, but not overtly classy. My concerns lie, instead, in the owners, the staff. Going just anywhere could result in a rather bad service, and my identity could well be revealed before either of us are ready for it. Likewise, going somewhere like Choji’s or Ichiraku’s provides the same problem, if not in a different circumstance.

I think I begin to hear her teeth chatter. We have been walking for a while. I direct us into a convenience store, where History Girl breathes on her hands before rubbing warmth into her face. I step into the aisles, avoiding the eye of the worker behind the counter.

Looking down at her, I say, “I’ll be going to my office. There’s a few things I need to finish. Grab what you want.”

Which is a half-lie. I do have things to do at the office. I always do. But they were things I purposefully left to be dealt with next week. But there is no other place I can think to take her. My home is out of the question. It’s too cold for a park or a walk around. Anywhere else in the public can lead this already shaky evening down an even worse path.

“Will I bother you?” she asks.

“No.” I think for a minute, walking down the aisle, paying no attention to the goods on the shelves. “Would you rather go home?”

She plucks something, tucks it to her side, and says, “No.”

So we comb the store. History Girl gathers all she needs in her arms, goes up to the counter, and pays for it. With two bags hanging from her hands, she readies herself for the cold, and I use my body as a temporary shield to block the wind. Hokage’s Tower is not too far away. When it comes into view, she blinks the ice out of her eyes.

“That is where you work?”

“That’s right.”

Most of the employees of the tower are home. All the Advisors are gone, thankfully, and the walk down the hallway is the most quiet it has ever been since I’ve started working here. We arrive at my door, and as I fish the key from my pocket, History Girl eyes the number plate next to it, as if memorizing it. Will she ever come visit me while I’m at work? The idea doesn’t agitate me too much; I only hope she’ll choose to do so after she’s found out who I am.

When we enter, I motion for her to take off her coat and to lay out her things on the cushioned armchairs against the wall opposite of my desk. I take the time to hide my nameplate in one of the drawers, and then I peel off my own coat and hang it on the rack behind my chair before taking a seat. I roll over to pull the chain of the corner lamp, then rotate the switch of the one on my desk, warming the dull office room with amber light. History Girl is admiring the bookshelf perpendicular to my desk and her spot.

“You can eat there, if you’d like.” The clock on my desk tells me it’s ten past eight. Surely, she’s hungry by now. “If you have anything you need to warm up, I can show you where to go.”

She shakes her head and thanks me, digging through her bags to pull out her individual items of food. I’m searching for Finance’s weekly report documents when she comes to stand in front of my desk, pushing something across the surface to me. Yaki onigiri. Packaged and fresh.

“In case you’re hungry.” Her smile is as warm as the lamp light. Her eyes wander off, and suddenly, she looks surprised. “You kept them.”

When I follow her gaze and see my gifts — the very ones she gave me — I feel slightly clogged up. “Of course,” I mutter. “I’m not heartless enough to throw them away.”

She reaches out to touch the lip of the mug, and unlike with Naruto, I don’t feel the need to snatch it away from her.

“I don’t think you’re heartless,” she says.

______

After she finishes eating, she asks if she could read something from the shelf. Inwardly, I doubt there’s anything she’ll find fascinating there. The books I keep in the office could be categorized in their own archive, full of governmental jargon and of the likes. Still, my hand raises to give her my permission, and as I scan over my documents, I listen to her shuffle over. She takes her time. I can only imagine her look of bafflement at the mere titles of the books.

“You’ve read these?” she asks.

I sign a page before flipping to the next. “Some. Most of them say the same things in different ways. I don’t intend to waste my time reading them all.”

“You must enjoy reading.”

I wait for her to say more, but the pause stretches out. Eventually, I recognize that it’s my turn to speak. I raise my head and find her still by the shelf, bookless.

“I have nothing else to do with my time,” I say.

Abandoning the shelf, History Girl returns to her seat. “Do you only read? Or is there more?” My brows furrow together, which she reads as anger, for she quickly adds, “Am I being too nosy?”

“That’s not it.” It’s just mildly surprising that she’d ask such a thing. Not that I’m against it. Not that I find it annoying. “I may disappoint you, for I’m not all that interesting. I work, I read, I train. That’s been my life since the war.”

“And before the war?”

How shall I answer that? I choose my words carefully, testing them on my tongue before speaking. “I traveled.”

History Girl smiles, interested. “While you were also a Konoha shinobi? Does your Hokage allow that?”

“It’s complicated.”

“My clan also travels,” she continues, her sudden giddiness unaffected by my vague answer. “When I was very young, we moved from Kumogakure. And now we are here. My father tells me we have always been nomadic, though I am not quite sure why.”

The idea of the Hyuuga leaving within the next decade irks me deep in my core. I scribble my signature and flip the document over to read the last page of it.

“Of course, some of us stay behind. The sick and elderly. But Father says it’s important to stay together.”

I let her words hang in the air until I finish the document. I sign, stamp my infamous seal, and organize it in a file for Monday. My already small workload is thinning by the minute. If I keep up this pace, it will be ten, and I will have two hours of scrounging for something to do — something that isn’t just this. Sitting. Talking.

I take the next document slowly, pen twirling between my fingers.

“Do you know what is happening in Iwa?” The question slips from my mouth before I realize it, and I bite my tongue hard in response. Idiot. 

History Girl shifts, semi-confused and semi-worried. “No? Is . . . something happening?”

I sigh heavy and pinch between my knitted brows. Fuck . I’m just as bad as Naruto — and after all that berating.

“I can’t say.”

I tell myself to not look. Just read. Sign in the right spots and move on. But my focus drifts to her pale face, to the worry crinkling her expression. I really shouldn’t have said anything. I would not have made such a mistake in the Archive, where I’m used to holding my tongue. It was a bad idea to bring her here — to agree to this in the first place.

“A comrade,” I mutter, “is visiting Iwagakure the start of the New Year. I cannot tell you much, both because it’s highly confidential and because I, myself, do not know anything.” Her expression does not change, doesn’t even falter. I grapple for something to say. This isn't my strong point. Whenever Sakura tiredly complains, I stay silent. Sometimes, she just wants someone to listen; but other times, she needs comfort, and I have never given her such. I try to give her relief by fixing the issues in the system, but I don’t even have enough power to do that much. Saying the right thing without giving false hope — that is not something Uchiha Sasuke does. But . . . to her, I’m not that Uchiha. “If it were something drastic, I would have known about it, and Lord Hokage would have sent more than just one man. Ease yourself.”

History Girl rubs her face, stands, and grabs the extra chair leaning against the wall that is meant for Department Heads and meeting visitors who plan to stay in the office for a while.

“Can I sit next to you,” she says, “and watch?”

I snort. “It’s rather boring.”

But I shift my chair over so she can drag hers over and sit with me behind the desk. Her eyes scan the paragraphs, not reading (she seems to know not to do so without me having to warn her) but rather taking in the amount of what I must do daily. She watches my pen as I tuck it against my palm and hitch it between my fingers and use it to sign or take notes. Then, when she’s done with that, she looks at the display of things on my desk, which is not much to begin with.

“That’s you.”

I turn to the sole picture frame that I have. My team, back when I was a genin. The annoyance on my face contrasts with the grinning expression of my teammates and sensei, and a wave of amusement and nostalgia clutches my chest in a manner that I have not felt in a long time. It’s accompanied with flittering dread when I see the Uchiha fan on my shirt. History Girl has read enough of those books to be able to associate it with my clan, but she does not seem to notice or recognize it, instead examining the photo as a whole.

“Your team?” she asks.

“Tragically.” I grab the frame and bring it close. “As you can see, I had both arms back then.”

History Girl laughs, which eases me. She turns to look at the rest of what decorates my desk, and I swiftly position the photo at such an angle where the glare of the lamp light hides the Uchiha fan.

Several minutes pass before she speaks again.

“Thank you.”

I huff and click my pen. “I’ve done nothing.”

“You calmed me down earlier,” she points out, smiling softly. “I am always comforted by the things you say.”

Can that possibly be true? Haven’t I been overly harsh to her in the past?

“You give me too much credit.”

History Girl leans a little closer. Any more, and her chin would connect with my shoulder.

“No,” she says. “I merely believe in you.”

Suddenly, I feel starved and out of energy. My vision wavers, so I take the wrapped onigiri and peel the plastic away. I offer her one, and she takes it gratefully, eating with me in the quiet of my office.

______

As expected, ten o’clock comes and goes, and I am all out of things to do. Monday morning will be a breezy and languid time, but right now, there are two people in this windowless, uneventful office room with only a shelf of dull government books to read. There is the option, of course, to leave. But then where else would we go? Just to another dull place for her to sit around and wait for time to pass? Afterwards, we’ll go our separate ways and realize, in the end, nothing has transpired. A waste of time.

History Girl, seeing my paperwork is gone, lifts out of her chair and goes to where her stuff has been packed away. She brings out another thing — a flimsy, thin book, from what I can tell. Only when she joins me once again behind the desk do I see that it’s a book of crosswords.

“I couldn’t find any Sudoku,” she says, opening up to the first page, “so I got this instead. And look! It’s Konoha-themed. Entertainment and educational, right? Well, um, for me, I suppose.”

She laughs nervously and looks like she expects me to shoot down the idea. Instead, I grab her a pen, and we lean in close and slowly go through the hints. The first few pages were quick and easy to finish, but the deeper into the book we got, the more obscure the hints became, and even I began to struggle — some. History Girl, only able to answer anything history-related due to her reading choices for the past several months, didn’t seem at all dismayed with the difficulty of trying to answer hints about a village she hasn't even spent a year of her life within. Rather, she mused in wonder when I would jot down answers, then laugh and tease when I would toll. We would ponder together, just managing to finish the sixth puzzle by the skin of our teeth before we equally decide to take a break.

It’s slightly past eleven when she sits on the floor and folds herself in one of the meditative poses I’ve taught her. Patting the spot next to her, the invitation is clear. Slowly, I join her, and we breathe together and fade into the quiet of an almost-empty Hokage Tower. I feel her conscious slip into meditation, but I cannot follow suit. I am too preoccupied with the sensation of her, the warmth of a body next to me — that piece of sanctuary that has followed me here and has not left.

I crack my eyes open and look at her profile, at the slope of her nose and the dip of her chin; the way her hair curls slightly inward at the ends.

When that passes and she stirs back into reality, refreshed and calmed, she finally grabs a book from the shelf and makes sure that I stay sat on the floor and wait for her. Then, she opens to random pages and tries to quiz me on certain vocabulary or clauses or laws. I’m puzzled at first, but go along with her game, not interested at all in giving her the idea that I haven’t a clue what’s in those books. I prove so with utmost certainty as I answer everything she throws at me; even when she tries to find something to stump me, I answer, and her awe cannot be hidden from her face.

“You weren’t kidding. You really have read them.”

“You thought I was lying?”

We stand. I drift by my desk as she returns the book to the shelf.

“I couldn’t imagine you reading such boring things.”

“Says the girl who reads Konoha History in her pastime.”

She snickers, puts the book in place, and wafts back into the middle of my office. And, once again, the quiet settles like dust upon the furniture. It is not the kind that necessarily needs to be filled; but, in some sense, I feel as though I have to. In other circumstances, whether it be Kakashi or Naruto, I would beg for the quiet, for just a moment of nothing but stillness. And, normally, it is the same with History Girl — only she welcomes it as much as I do.

But we are out of our normal environment and way of interaction. She has seen my work, my office; a side to me she would never know existed if our relationship remained strictly in The Archive. And I have eaten with her, filled crosswords with her; I’ve been mesmerized by the look of her to the point of being unable to meditate, and I have sat criss-crossed on the floor with her to answer any question she threw at me with ease. It dawns on me that, this entire time, we’ve been passing time by her accord. She waited patiently for my paperwork to be signed and filed away, and then she did with our time what she wanted.

And now there is a standstill. One I both do and do not mind.

My thighs lean into the desk. I rest my hand on the edge, and I ask, “Why did you come here?”

Her initial reaction is perplexed, followed by rosy anxiety. “Because you said, um, that you had work to finish.”

“Why were you fine with that? Anyone else would leave.”

She stills. “Should I have?”

“No,” I say, sighing. “What I’m asking is why did you want to spend tonight with me at all?”

To choose to spend your New Years’ Eve in a dark office, alone with a man who spends half of his time stuck in paperwork, rather than with family or friends — there has to be a reason for that. I’ve wondered and tried to figure it out since we left the library together, but the answer never came to me.

At this position, I tower over her. I stare down my nose at her, expectant and unyielding. I’m adamant in getting her answer. I determine, just then, that I will not let her leave until she speaks truthfully to me — and in this headspace, I nearly miss the change in the air. Nearly. History Girl avoids my eye in that way that I know means she’s not saying something, but I get the inclination she’s finding the words (and, perhaps, the confidence) to do so. Her ungloved fingers press together nervously, and her face is bright, almost a glowing crimson against the light of the lamps. She collects herself in deep breaths, shifts, then moves.

History Girl puts herself in front of me, her boots almost touching mine. The sensation of someone so close, to the point of our body heat linking arms, is not one I’m too familiar with. I know the feeling of perceiving someone from a distance, of getting a sense of them when they’re out of the way — outside the door, in the hallway; I can’t see them, but I feel them there. But here — I see her, and I feel her, and it’s all new. The stream-like, pond-smooth chakra behind her eyes awakens against me. I feel it drip down my body. She breathes in, and I breathe out.

“There’s something I wanted to say,” her whisper catches the side of my neck, “before the end of the year.”

Slowly, one of her hands comes between us and grabs the front of my shirt, and I can’t remember a time when my own office has felt so bright.

The sound of a distant explosion grabs my attention, thrusting me into the cold of reality. I grab her shoulder when another happens, and I steer her behind me in case the attacking enemy bursts through the door and starts lunging. My rinnegan activates, but both it and my senses find no one within the Hokage Tower; no one but the girl behind me, startled.

“I-Is something wrong?”

A third explosion erupts, and that’s when I realize. Fireworks. My dōjutsu stills, and I look over my shoulder at the clock and see that it’s a minute after midnight. We’re officially into the New Year.

“Come here.”

I open my office’s door. History Girl follows me into the hallway, down to the nearest window. When we look outside, we can see the fireworks blooming over the roofs of buildings. The bright colors of red and white and gold cast light onto the smoke clinging to the sky. There’s a thrum of cheer and music muffled by the fireworks; even the cold, it seems, cannot freeze Konoha’s spirits.

History Girl, hands perched on the sill of the window, watches on. Her face blinks with the colors of the fireworks. There’s a slight, almost childish awe to her, but at the same time, there’s something mature and old in her expression. I think about what she had said to me in the office: ‘ There’s something I wanted to say before the end of the year.’

That chance has vanished, I realize.

And I wonder in my spot next to her, taken once again by her profile, by the complexity of her expression and the smallness of her next to me, if I’ll ever get to hear what she was going to say, or if, down the road, I’ll have to force it out of her.

Chapter Text

I come into my office on Monday morning. It’s early enough for the sun to barely be in the sky, which doesn’t affect my windowless office all that much. The Tower is full of lively people. Even the common man, who has turned slightly bitter since the veto of his finance proposal, calls out to me when I pass his open door office, wishing me a Happy New Year, his old face looking slightly less in the subtle sunlight coming in through the windows. I unlock my office as I always do, take the nameplate out of the desk drawer, reposition the framed photo in the corner, and sit.

The files that I finished Friday Night are still in their respective spots, ready to be given to Lord Hokage once he’s ready for them. Truthfully, there is no reason for me to have come punctually early. The next wave of workload and meetings will not start for another two hours. I could have very easily slept in or squeezed in a morning dojo session, and yet, here I am.

Why?

Unconsciously, I tap my pen against the edge of the desk. I drag over one of the documents, looking it over, making sure I didn’t miss a page or a place to sign. But — of course, I didn’t. I do not do things half-heartedly, even if that includes paperwork and monotonous signatures and stamps of approval. I’m being repetitive for no reason, and when I turn away, my eyes lift, and a small part of me expects for History Girl to still be across from me, sitting in those cushioned seats against the wall, staring at the many books on the shelf with her hands folded to her lap.

Somehow, my dreary office has changed since last Friday.

Frowning, I yank my coat on once more, lock my door, and take a few rounds outside the Hokage Tower, the air freezing against my skin until it’s all but numb.

By ten, Shizune comes to gather the documents that she’ll need to report to Kakashi. Her slight widening of her gaze tells me she’s a little surprised I’ve managed to get everything done so early in the morning. Hah. Wouldn’t she like to know that I had spent nearly four hours of New Years’ Eve here, pretending to be busy so that girl didn’t realize how utterly hopeless I was. I slide her the files, and she asks if Naruto had stopped by before heading out. He hadn’t, which it’s fine by me.

Let the fucker freeze for all I care.

______

Thankfully, Monday turns busy by noon, and I’m to my chin in meetings and reports and visiting Departments all across Konoha. The winter has slowed down wall efforts, but crime rates are dropping with the temperatures. Hard to rob people for petty cash when you can’t feel your own fingers, I guess. Medical is still barely making due, and the influx of holiday accidents and illness from the cold swarms the hospital rooms and overwhelms the already tired staff. The same problems I’ve been seeing since starting are now slipping into the New Year, and late into the afternoon, between documents, I wonder if we’ll ever be able to fix even a fourth of our issues.

I take an hour of overtime to finish up a good chunk of the paperwork, leaving the rest of it for Tuesday. I look over my planner, check on how many meetings I’ll have for the rest of the week and what we’ll be going over, and finally give myself permission to leave for the night.

I’m halfway out the door, barely pulling my key out of the pocket of my coat, when two forms approach me, their footsteps heavy and fast, frantic. I look up and see Kakashi and Shizune. There’s an otherness to my old sensei’s face — tense and not connected to this place. Almost lost in thought. He’s rid of his cloak and hat, plainly dressed.

“Sasuke,” Shizune calls.

Something has happened. Chakra floods my body, ready for the possible chance of an attack.

Kakashi finally looks down at me. His hand lands on my shoulder for a moment, then leaves as he hurries down the hallway.

“It’s Naruto,” he says. “He’s in the hospital.”

Everything inside of me tenses. Kakashi is already gone, off to the hospital. Shizune looks ready to follow, but she stays with me.

“We’re being attacked,” I assume.

“No,” she says. “No. A rogue, or something. We don’t know yet. We were only now just told.” The lack of information can lead to the most deadly of outcomes. It very well could be an entire army of shinobi at our door, and we wouldn’t be none the wiser. Had Naruto stumbled upon them while on his way to Iwa? Was he stupid enough to attack instead of backtracking and informing Konoha about the potential danger? I need to go to him and see the damage. That’s my only way of understanding. But before I can move, Shizune stops me by grabbing my arm. “You need to know. It’s — it’s not good. Sakura’s clone said something about his chakra system being blocked.”

I pull my arm from her grasp. “Go to the hospital. I know what to do.”

“But what can —”

I body flicker, traveling close to the speed of light to the front of the Tower, then down the street — flashing across Konoha, chakra zapping through me. Within the minute, I reach the outskirts of Konoha. A ghost town greets me. The crumpled wall in the background. Dead grass and bare trees. I leap from abandoned building to abandoned building, then land inside the Hyuuga compound’s barren courtyard. My chakra is blasting against the cold air. That alone gets their attention, and I see doors crack open and white, film eyes staring at me from the depths of the buildings.

“Let me speak to your Head!” I demand. “My request is of urgent matter.”

They are quiet, not even whispering. Finally, the front door slides back, revealing the Hyuuga Head with his nephew looming behind. Both of their byakugan are activated.

“I was not aware of your coming.”

“Nor was I planning it,” I tell him, “but there has been an attack on one of Konoha’s shinobi, and I require the ability of your clan’s dōjutsu.”

The nephew hisses, but his uncle holds up a hand to silence him. They just keep staring at me. All of them. Do they not understand the definition of urgent? Can they not tell by my voice that I have a limited amount of time?

“Your daughter,” I announce. “Call for your daughter.”

She is the only one who can do it — the only one I trust. I’ve spent the last several Fridays training her, educating her; through my own aid, she was able to block and unblock one of my points without formal shinobi training.

The Head remains quiet, looks back at his scowling nephew, then pushes the sliding door further open.

“Hinata,” he calls into the building, “you are needed.”

“ Uncle,” the nephew grits.

From the beyond of the building, History Girl appears, and the relief attacks my legs and nearly knocks me over when I see her. When she sees me, she blinks rapidly, then slips between father and cousin to meet me in the courtyard. She’s not at all dressed for the cold, but she does not shiver.

“What has happened?” she asks.

“My teammate — the one I told you about — has been attacked.” I grab her arm, and she does not wince. “We’re going to the hospital. You need to unblock his points.”

“Unblock? But —”

“ Hinata,” I beg.

She tenses, buzzes, then casts a short glance at her father. “Okay.” Her arm grabs my arm, as well, and she starts to drag me out of the courtyard. “Take me there. We have to hurry.”

I stop her, halting her at my side. Chakra surges to my eyes, pumping through the channels, and when both dōjutsus activate, spinning wildly, burning awake and sparking, the space before us cracks and shifts, tearing open into the gaping wound of a dark portal. There’s a slight strain beginning in my skull, which I ignore. Hinata gasps, gripping my arm.

“What —”

“Follow me,” I tell her. “It will take us to the hospital.”

When I step forward, so does she. The howl of wind and chakra consumes us, dragging us in. I feel it burn into my skin. I wrap my arm around her, trying to protect as much of her from the stinging sensation as I can. We’re enveloped, the ground disappearing behind us. We walk on thin air, time and space distorting around us. She squeezes closer to me, obviously scared. Thankfully, with the relatively short distance, the exit forms in front of us quickly — a blinding scar of light. We push out together, stepping down onto the tile of the hospital. The portal hisses behind us, zipping shut, and a wave of exhaustion has me grabbing the front desk to balance myself, the nurse behind it eeping in shock. Hinata holds my side, unsure what to do.

“Are you —”

“I’m fine,” I grit. My chakra floods from my eyes, and a headache replaces it. To the nurse, I say, “Haruno Sakura. Bring her here.”

There’s a blur of noise and movement. Doors opening and shutting and opening. The medical detergent of Sakura’s chakra stabs my senses as she rushes into the main room at the front of the hospital. Her eyes are red and scared, and she hisses at me.

“You idiot!” she barks. “Why would you use that to get here? Now you can’t use — and we need to see his chakra points — he’s barely stable as is!”

I thumb my temples and mutter, “I’m not going to do it. She is.”

Sakura finally looks at the girl next to be.

“Her dōjutsu lets her see the chakra system,” I say. “ All of it.”

Sakura considers, but only for a momentary second. Then, she pushes open the hospital doors and leads us into the messy maze of hallways. Nurses rush from place to place. Doctors dip into patient rooms to be out of our way. She thrusts her shoulder through another set of doors, then finally brings us to an operating room, where Naruto lies motionless on a table, tubes and wires connected to him. The rest of the staff inside give us a weary look, but Sakura reassures them, stating we are Naruto’s only chance. There’s not a quiver in her voice. She’s trying hard to stay level-headed.

At Naruto’s side, I can see the veins under the paling skin of his chest. His mouth is nearly blue. He looks half-dead.

Hinata sees it, too, and she has turned nearly as pale.

“Don’t look at his face,” I tell her. “What do you see?”

“Look at his chest,” Sakura adds quickly.

Hinata takes in a deep breath, activates her byakugan, and examines Naruto’s body. Her eyes widen to a sickening width, and her fingers tense.

“The major point in his chest,” she whispers.

“I tried that,” one of the medic-nin, hands glowing with chakra, trying to ease some pain in Naruto’s side, says. “It didn’t work.”

“It’s not the point itself,” Hinata continues. “It’s all the smaller ones around it. Seven of them are blocked.”

It’s unheard of. Blocking the points surrounding the major chakra point would obstruct that point, as well. But no nin is capable of that, and no medic-nin in this hospital has the ability to reverse it as well.

“He’s not breathing,” a nurse alerts.

She scrambles to get a tube to stick down his throat, but Sakura stops her. “Don’t. We need to unblock the points.” She rolls up her sleeves, pushing chakra into her hands, and gives Hinata a stern look. “You have to direct me where to put my hands.”

I sneer. That won’t do. Even with the aid of the byakugan, without the vision for herself, there is no way Sakura will be able to unblock all seven of those minor points. Grabbing Hinata’s shoulder, I maneuver her around the table, situating her in the best place for her to access Naruto’s chakra system.

“She’ll do it,” I demand.

Sakura’s mouth drops. “Sasuke. She has no training.”

Hinata looks up at me, terrified.

“You have done it before,” I tell her. “Pretend it is me. Just needle the points with your chakra until they are unblocked.”

Her chin juts downward, gaze looking over Naruto’s body. Her shoulders are tense, and her hands shake. She tries to steel herself, inhaling and exhaling, but it does her no good. I reach around and take both of her hands in mine, stilling them against my palm.

“I’ll lend you chakra,” I murmur.

Her nod is short. I push some of my chakra into her hands. They jump, and she winces, then sucks in a pained breath. I push more in, until her forearms pulse with my chakra, the skin stretching. I release her hands, and she hovers them over Naruto’s bare chest.

“Count them,” I tell her, holding her shoulder. “Focus.”

Her right hand pushes into his skin, and a spike of her chakra enters him. As if burned, she yanks her hands away, waits, then slowly returns them.

“One,” she whispers.

The entire room is still. Not a single nurse or medic-nin tries to intervene. Sakura cups both hands to her mouth, as if a single breath will break Hinata’s concentration.

She aims for another, then attacks it. “T-Two.”

Hinata’s hands are red, glistening like a burn. My chakra is burning her from the inside, but she calms the pained shaking before going for another.

“Three.”

I stare at Naruto’s face. It looks like a corpse. He looks dead. Even if she manages to unblock all his points without causing anymore injury, is there still time for him to recover? Or is he already too far gone?

“Four.”

I scowl and focus back on Hinata. I push more chakra into her shoulder. She flinches.

“Five.”

Sakura muffles a sob, swallowing it before it disturbs the thick silence.

“Six.” Hinata’s finger makes a crescent shape upwards, close to where Naruto’s heart would be. She leans in, holds her breath, and pushes. “Sev . . . I-I got them —”

Naruto’s body stirs, his lungs expanding, chest lurching, mouth peeling back to swallow air as color finally floods his skin once more. The medic-nin and nurses jump into action. I pull Hinata back with me as Sakura takes her spot, hands glowing and hovering over Naruto’s chest. The once deadly quiet room erupts and clashes with equipment and calls, the howl of chakra and the gasps of Naruto.

Carefully, I circle my arm around Hinata and lead her out of the room. I lead her to a metal bench, where she sits, curls into herself, and sobs. The tender red of her arms shake with a burning pain, and if I folded back her sweater, I’m sure I’d see the same sight on the shoulder I touched.

My regret is hard to swallow. This was necessary. If not her, then Uzumaki Naruto would be dead, and Haruno Sakura would spend the rest of her life thinking it was her fault — that, if she had just trained a little more, had studied the chakra system a little more, then she could have saved him. Hyuuga Hinata was the only one who could have saved him, and she has. But now I’ve brought a civilian into the shinobi world. I have exposed her to the thin line of life and death that I know, that I can handle, that I have trained my body and mind to contain. But she has witnessed a man on the brink of death, and that image will never leave her.

And what can I do to fix this?

Nothing.

But when her hand grabs the hem of my shirt and she presses her face into my stomach, I let her. I loom over her, and I feel every surface of her face against me, and I steady her and rest my hand between her shoulder blades; and I hope, secretly and desperately, that after this, she will not come to hate me.

______

When she calms, I set her back and make sure she rests comfortably against the wall. I tell her, absently, that I’ll be back, and I follow the halls back to the front of the hospital, where Kakashi and Shizune wait. They stand upon seeing me, and I tell them, first, that Naruto’s fine; then, lowly, I tell them we have a different issue on our hands. Naruto’s attacker managed to block seven minor points in order to effectively obstruct the major point in his chest. I watch the fireflies of relief die in their eyes, turning somber and chilling, serious. They realize what I’m saying. Someone (or, worst case scenario, a whole group of people) have the ability to accurately block chakra.

We have a clan with a dōjutsu that can help them do exactly that. A clan within our very, half-baked walls.

Sakura, tired and still shaky with tension and draining adrenaline, enters. Her fingertips are tender with healing chakra, and her brows are slightly pinched with a migraine. When she comes, Kakashi holds an arm out, allowing her to rest her head against him for a moment.

“You did well,” he says.

“I did nothing,” she tells him, voice slightly muffled. “I only healed him.”

Kakashi and Shizune, confused, wonder what she means, and Sakura merely invites them to come see Naruto. He’s unconscious, but well, so they pick up their heavy coats from the chairs and follow her through the swinging doors. I go with them, pondering. When we reach the room Naruto’s been moved into, I round a different corner, seeing Hinata just a bit away, still on that metal bench, as if she hasn’t moved a single muscle. Curled up and still. If we were in The Archive, she’d be diving into a book, so taken in that she’s lost the ability to acknowledge the rest of the world for a while.

Kakashi pauses by the door, watching me, then spotting Hinata.

He strays. I can tell he’s contemplating coming over. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the two: unblocked minor chakra points, and a member of a clan with a dōjutsu that allows them to do just that. And, being that he’s the Hokage and that his advisor loves to harp on me when I tell her week after week that I’m still working out things with the Hyuuga to get them keen on helping with our wall, Kakashi knows well of her little secret. The milky white of her eyes is all he needs to know.

I lift my hand, gesturing for him to leave it for now. He stays, thinks, then nods before entering Naruto’s room. When the door quietly clicks shut, I return my gaze to Hinata, to the small crown of her head.

“I’ll walk you back,” I tell her.

The rough material of her sweater irritates her already swollen eyes when she rubs her sleeve against them. “Thank you.”

She stands cautiously, eying her own legs, as if expecting them to betray her and buckle at any moment. I step a tad bit closer, a pillar of stability if she so happens to need me. We walk carefully down the hallway, through the doors, into the large waiting room at the front. The lady behind the front desk whispers a good night that forces a reassuring smile on Hinata’s face, and then we’re out in the freezing world. Immediately, her body tenses up. She cups her hands together, pressing them into her stomach in search of some body heat. I make sure to step in front of the wind to give her some measly protection, though I doubt it does much good.

The walk to the outskirts, to the humble Hyuuga Estate, is long and quiet. Hinata keeps to herself, and I have plenty of things to weigh in my head. That annoying line of regret still snakes through my mind, so I try to ignore it, thinking instead about the potential enemy we have on our hands.

To be honest, I’m not totally convinced the Hyuuga is the cause behind Naruto’s attack — despite them being the only group I know of who would be capable of such a thing. As I recall, some of the older or sickly Hyuuga were left behind in Iwa. Perhaps they were the ones who blocked Naruto’s points. But then again, the Hyuuga Head allowed Hinata to go to the hospital and unblock those very points. If he suspected his own people to be behind the attack of one of Konoha’s most powerful shinobi, would he allow his own daughter to aid in the survival of that very man who could, in turn, cast out the Hyuuga upon his recovery? Not to mention that the clan is a family of miners with no shinobi training. Merely being able to see the chakra system would do little to actually, perfectly block seven minute points in the chest of a moving, fighting ninja.

So if not the Hyuuga, then who?

We arrive on the grounds of the Hyuuga compound before I come to any concrete conclusion. The dead grass and dark sky make it all murky and bland. Our shoes crunch into the gravel as we pass the yard, but before I can lift myself onto the engawa —

“Uchiha . . . Sasuke.”

I have heard that voice say that name many, many times. A little sheepishly, a little anxiously, but almost always with hope and an iota of excitement. Uchiha Sasuke: that beacon of change. Of a new chapter unfolding. Uchiha Sasuke, with his own dōjutsu, who might be able to help her understand the byakugan a little more. Uchiha Sasuke, who, because of his own eyes, might not judge hers as severely as so many people have.

But we are not in The Archive. Not by that shelf where, hanging over my seat, rests a book with my clan’s name on its title. Not reading the newspaper and snorting at the complaints of the local elders moaning about that very man.

We’re about a few steps away from entering the Hyuuga complex. We’re on the outskirts of Konoha, the sad outline of the wall far in the distance, a mere shadow in the night. We’re about as far away from Uchiha Sasuke as we’ve ever been, and yet I’m here, and so is she, and when I turn back, she’s looking at all of me, discovering the parts she had not realized existed until this very night.

“That’s you?” she asks.

I feel choked, as if her very fingers have prodded into my esophagus, hitting the right points to make the muscles and flesh tighten up until it becomes nearly impossible to breathe. I had known that, eventually, it would come out. I couldn’t keep it from her forever — not unless I never saw her again, never said a word to her for the rest of my life. And even then, by chance, she would somehow come across my name, a photo of me — something that would link that mysterious Uchiha Sasuke and the man who sits across from her in The Archive. The truth finds a way, eventually. And now is that eventually. It’s not a shock. It’s not even a surprise.

But . . . truthfully, if I had power over the reveal of that truth, I would have chosen better circumstances. Ones where we’d be more prepared, where we wouldn’t be stood in the cold, where some of my chakra still remains in her system, burning her from the inside, the flush of fever already poisoned into her skin. If I could choose, we’d be in the privacy of The Archive, where I’d have time to explain — if she’d let me.

But I have no power over such matters, and wishing for such is merely a waste of brainpower. My mouth thins, and I look down at her, into her eyes, and say, “That’s right.”

She trembles. The cold. Because of the cold, surely.

“Oh.”

And that, really, can’t be it. I can’t say I’m truly prepared for anything, but I am expecting something more . . . riled. Not explosive, but something sharp, or cold, or biting. Something like ‘you tricked me’ or ‘I never want to see you again’ . I can object to things like that. I can state my case. I can ease into it, one point after another, until I’m on the road to convincing her.

Convincing her of what?

. . . I don’t know.

But this is what I’d learned during my time as Head of Reconnaissance. When interrogating, you have to get the subject talking. You can’t squeeze information out of him when he’s silent. You can’t manipulate him into thinking you’re on his side if he’s not saying a word. When he speaks, you listen, and you take what you’ve learned from it and play with his mind until, suddenly, you’re the one in control of everything — of every action, every reaction, he has.

But. I stop myself, irked and cold. This isn’t an interrogation.

“W-Were, um . . . .” I watch her hands rub together, nervous. She winces at the pain such a mild action gives her, pulls her hands away, and tucks them carefully to her sides. “Was it, u-um, obvious and I was just . . . t-too stupid to realize?”

“You’re not stupid.” Immediate. Frigid. A bark. I feel irritation swell into my gaze, sharpening it. “Don’t say that. Have some confidence, for fuck’s sake.”

Stop, Sasuke. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn’t she be the angry one? Why does, in every interaction we have, she always turns the world on its side? Why can’t I ever guess what’s going to come out of her mouth? Why can’t she be normal and hate me like everyone else does!?

Her mouth shuts. She trembles some more. The cold. It has to be the cold. It’s freezing. We’ve been out here for a while. She’s not properly dressed to be in such weather. And here I am, keeping her out in the coldest weeks of the year. Here I am, irked, fucking enraged, for no damn reason at all — or maybe for a good damn reason. Because someone has to be in this situation. If not her, then it has to be me.

“Can’t you just —” I know what’s going to come out. It’s always this same pattern. With Naruto, with Kakashi, with Sakura. I rip into them. I try to make them hate me. Why? Don’t I need them? Aren’t they the only people I have on my side? Why do I appreciate them and want them to hate me at the same time? Bitter, yet thankful. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you — that’s what surfaces in my head when I’m with them. Because I wouldn’t. I’d be long gone from this fucking village. And that would be liberating, but it would also be hollowing. Empty. Lonely. And because I’m the unsure one, the confused one, the one that feels split in two by my own conscience, I lash out. Because of my own upset. How fucking juvenile. I bite hard into my tongue before I say any more. I swallow back the ire, face the wind to cool myself, and when I relax, I continue, slowly, “If you ask why I hid it from you, I’ll answer.”

The bland building stirs. The door slides open, clicking woodenly against the frame. The cousin, Neji, stares down from the leverage of the engawa, hair pulled tightly back, out of his face, so that his eyes are unshielded from view. I can feel the frothy heat of chakra prod into my side, and I stare through the dark at him, trying to find the swollen veins around his shadowed eyes. His dōjutsu is not activated, but it’s tempted, and when it turns onto me, it spits in ire.

“Cousin,” he mutters, “come inside.”

Hinata trembles and steps carefully onto the engawa. She stays next to him for a moment, whispering something. He listens, frowns, then rushes her inside before printing his palm against the cracked door frame.

“Uchiha-san,” he calls. “Hiashi-sama will have a word with you.”

And thus I return to that same, small room in the back of the complex. Lord Hiashi is already sat, and next to him, eyes bowed, sits Hinata. I kneel into the cushion on the other side of the low table, hand meeting the tatami mat. I bow, and when he tells me to lift my head, I watch Neji shut the door before sitting on the opposite side with his uncle and Hinata. Three Hyuuga, one Uchiha. If I weren’t so drastically aware of their absolute lack of training, I might feel a little pressured.

Lord Hiashi speaks first, evenly, voice unbothered by the cold or the light trembling of his daughter next to him. “I am hopeful to hear that the Konoha shinobi is well.”

“Well,” I repeat. “Recovering as we speak.”

 “As I’m aware, you are acquainted with my eldest.” He does not turn away from me to look down at his daughter. In my peripheral, I can see her gingerly examining her tender fingers, curling the sleeves of her blouse around her hands to hide the red skin. “It did come to some surprise that you would call for her, specifically. As I’m sure you know, my clan is not trained in the world of shinobi. We are mere miners with no history in medicine or healing.”

I settle more weight into my knees. Despite my previous ignorance to clan matters as a child, my knowledge has expanded since, and I hone in on the breath of unsaid words between nonchalant sentences. It is a tactic learned in my years of interrogation, in reading over records and training requirements for new members of the Interrogation Team: go a level deeper. Even if the speaker isn’t aware of any second meaning to their words, their subconscious usually adds it. And with Lord Hiashi, I’m more than convinced that his motives are purposeful. He’s not truly interested in my knowing of his daughter, or what I have done with her to make her someone a Konoha Council member would come to during the threat of an attack on the village. Rather, he’s looking for information on the attack itself — and what, in turn, his eldest had done to fix such an attack.

I contemplate holding back this information. Even if I, myself, doubt the Hyuuga have any hand in Naruto’s attack, it would still be beneficial to not share such information with a potential danger to Konoha’s internal and external safety. But I’m not here to make myself a villain to the Hyuuga. To create some grounds of trust between them and my position, I’ll have to share something.

I take my time, allowing the Hyuuga to sit there and wait. I want them to watch me weigh the pros and cons. That way, when I do speak, they will realize my decision comes from a thoughtful and cautious mind.

“Even with little to no training, the kekkei genkai’s ability to see the chakra system is revolutionary.”

Neji turns his head as Lord Hiashi hums. Hinata’s face turns red, but her body is still, stiff, chained in place from what could be years of training, of practice.

“Having a representative of Konoha acknowledge the power of the Hyuuga’s dōjutsu is a gracious endeavor,” he says.  But, I prompt to myself, hearing it coil in the corners of the Head’s mouth. “And while I am appreciative of Konoha’s attention to my clan, I regrettably must inform you that our dōjutsu cannot be used to aid any of this great village’s efforts.”

As I expected. I turn my attention onto Hinata, who avoids my eye.

Her father sees this, and evenly adds, “I am glad my eldest daughter was able to help with the attack on your shinobi. From how I saw it, he was an important asset, which is why I allowed it this one time.”

That cements it. The cut-off. The final denial. If it were anyone else in my shoes, the last shattering of hope would be nothing but devastating. But I expected this. I didn’t think for a second that Hinata’s freedom to follow me to the hospital would be the catalyst, the start of change. My hand lifts from the mat, landing on my knee, and I straighten my back. This conversation will not be lasting for much longer.

“I see,” I say. “But for the sake of Konoha’s understanding, I’ll ask you to give clarification as to why the Hyuuga cannot give aid.”

“With the byakugan,” Lord Hiashi corrects. “In other matters, perhaps . . . .” His words fade, and he lifts his left shoulder. Neji stands swiftly, removing himself from the table to open the door. It seems my time here is at its end. “With our low supply of chakra, the dōjutsu causes extreme pain when activated, and it drains us considerably. The health of my clan comes first, and I am sure Konoha can understand my stubbornness.”

I lift and nod. Lord Hiashi and Hinata stand, as well, but do not leave the side of the table. I make my way to the door, looking out into the complex, where more Hyuuga hover, rockish, like statues, like beings carved from stone. Then, I turn back, bowing, thanking the Head for his time. When my gaze lifts, I lock eyes with Hinata, who does not look away this time. Her fingers, still tender, still red, fold against her chest, and I hone in on those eyes of her, the pale iris almost melting into the whites — the almost invisible pupil that tightens with worry, with shame. I remember how they would flare out, expand, when she would activate that byakugan of hers. I remember the glow, the fire, the crackle of chakra whirling in those very eyes.

Pain, he says.

Does he truly think I’m moronic enough to believe such a lie?

______

Friday arrives unceremoniously; a mere whisper in the crowd, unheard, unnoticed.

Naruto is still in the hospital. His energy has returned to him, tenfold by the inactivity of being stationed in a hospital room for so long. Sakura has personally seen to the healing of his channels and points, making sure they’re up to her high standard before even discussing a release date. Sometimes, Kakashi will go to see him during breaks. Shizune would stay back, tidying the office, sending off whatever paperwork or letters she has the authority to see to. I would go and visit the bastard once or twice after work, usually acting as his damn delivery boy, bringing him take-out because he wouldn’t stop complaining about the food from the hospital cafeteria. Last night, I informed him that I’d be too busy to bring him anything. He was halfway through his stir fry, sauce smeared against his chin, by the time he paid attention to my words.

“Busy?” he scoffed. “What? You’re going to see that Hyuuga lady or somethin’? Oi. You should bring her over some time. I still need to thank her for saving me ‘ttebayo!”

I only frowned, left the rest of his food on the small table by his bed, and left. Now, I’m trudging through the cutting wind. I push through the doors of the library and fall into my usual routine, picking up everything I need before traversing to The Archive. I grab a file from the shelf, sit in my normal chair, and start examining the content of the paper with no real interest. My foot taps the seconds into the carpet, which I try to ignore. I move on to the puzzles. I do all three of them, never minding their levels of difficulty.

I just need something to do with my hands.

4:25 comes, and the door does not open. As expected.

4:30. 4:55. 5:10. The door stays shut, and I remain the only one occupying The Archive. As expected.

I discard the paper, finger through my files, relax into the quiet, the aloneness. Complete isolation. No distractions. No one to bother me, to pull me out of my focus. No one to spend one hour every Friday to train, to meditate with, to let her trace her fingers into my skin as she memorizes my chakra system, knowing every vein in my body, every blood cell, every pulsing muscle and scarred bone. No one to think about, to wonder if she realizes that she knows Uchiha Sasuke better than anyone — that she’s set her byakugan on him enough to find all his weak spots — even the ones he, himself, may be unaware of . . . or maybe purposefully turns a blind eye toward, ignoring, denying.

5:45. 6:15. 6:50.

I get used to it. I sink into it. The buzz of the heating. The flipping of my own, ancient papers. The creaks of my own chair. The subdued energy of my own chakra. When it’s just one person in a room, they start to take over it all. I am all that I can sense, and I will get used to it.

I have to.

From now on, it will only be me.

7:00. I put my file away, recycle my paper, and trudge home.

And that’s it. A Friday of complete peace — so placid that, somehow, I don’t even feel my own legs beneath me.

______

Next Friday, the door opens.

“Uchiha-san.”

I check the clock first, just to make sure. In my head, I feel like I’m being tricked. Stupid. Who would trick me? But — I feel that if I look first at the door, at the one who calls my name, I will not see the face I’m expecting. So I lift my head to the clock, first, and scan the arms, the angles. 4:25. Right on time.

So then I look, and there is Hyuuga Hinata, dipped into The Archive, half of her body still lingering within the hallway, her head leaned over and hair hanging to her side. For a second, I forget about Naruto, about the attack that has made work hell ever sense. I forget the finality in the words of her father and the unjust spite I latched onto that frigid night in the middle of a courtyard of dead grass. I imagine I’ll see her, and it’s as if none of it happened. She’ll come in, chipper, ready for another Friday of training and relaxing in her chair, curled up, deep into a book. She might ask what the elders are saying about the weather, and I’ll tell her. She might ask to do one of the easier sudoku puzzles on the back, and I’ll slide her the paper and my pen. She might say, sheepishly, that she’s planning on visiting Uchiha Sasuke soon, and I’ll swallow something hot and try to come to terms with the rapid beating in my chest.

But the undecided glaze to her eyes fits me back into reality. She hesitates to enter, and I can’t settle on whether it’s because she is unsure if she wants to see me again, or if I’ll let her.

I say nothing. I fold the paper between armrest and knee. My legs feel buzzy and strange, like they’ve just stirred awake from being asleep for an entire week.

“Um.” Her face flushes. “I’m — my father does not want me to see you anymore. I . . . shouldn’t be here right now. But I wanted to see you. To talk.”

I remain silent, still in my seat. Eventually, she comes fully into The Archive, shutting the door carefully behind her before crossing the room and sitting on the edge of her chair. Her fingers seem to have healed, back to their normal color.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come last week.”

“Why are you apologizing?” I sigh.

She blinks, ponders. “I — I just thought you’d be wondering where I was.”

“I wasn’t.”

Hinata cringes, knuckles hiding behind her long sleeves.

The joints in my arm start to feel sore. The Archive is starting to feel less like me and more like the both of us. It dims with the hurt in her expression, and I adjust, calm the tension in my shoulders, and try again.

“That’s not right,” I mutter. “I was waiting for you.”

She smiles, then tucks her chin.

“That’s — um — well, you see, my father thinks if I leave, I will come to see you, so he doesn’t let me leave the complex much.” I should be annoyed — and I am, mostly. Isn’t it a bit much to force your adult daughter to stay in one place? But, at the same time, I’m a little pleased, and a little amused. Had he been that convinced that she’d come to see me the moment she could? Had she been that determined, despite all that has happened? And despite the Hyuuga Head’s best efforts, here she is. “I managed to convince him that I’d be helping Kiba-kun and Hana-chan with the dogs. Um. He’s not very fond of Kiba-kun, either, but despite how he might come across . . . he does want the Hyuuga to be, um, of some benefit to Konoha.”

My pleasure is dampened some. That clan of dogs cannot be the best of company. Couldn’t she use some other shinobi as an excuse?

Hinata continues, oblivious to my frown. “I told Hana-chan I’d be here, so she’ll vouch for me. Um. That’s why I’m here.”

My spine presses into the back of the chair. I look her over, attempting to determine where she’s going with this line of conversation. She’s come to see me for a reason, after all; and I doubt she’d be defying her father’s orders for the sake of small talk. She brightens under my gaze, squares her shoulders, and focuses.

“Uchiha-san,” she says, “that night, before we were interrupted, you said that I could ask why you hid your identity from me.”

Knowing where she’s going with this, I speak once more. “It wasn’t out of malice, nor was I trying to trick you.”

Her wide eyes don’t flitter away. She takes in every word I murmur without blinking. “Then why?”

How do I word something that I don’t truly understand on my own? How do I voice the absolute ease of being viewed as anonymous, a stranger, a nameless person in a village that curses my name without end? And would she understand? Would it make sense to someone who only knows Uchiha Sasuke as a name in a book, a newspaper?

“I simply preferred it,” I say.

Her face turns a deep scarlet, and I’m a little worried by the sight. What reaction is this? It doesn’t seem to be disgust, but it’s not a very pleased expression either.

“U-Um.” Her voice sputters out, meek and warm. She looks away, boot heels rubbing together. “Was it b-because you were worried I-I, um — that I had a c-crush on Uchiha Sasuke?”

Ah. I think back to the times I would mention such a thing, and to the sourness in my mouth when she would ultimately deny the notion. Sometimes, I had been teasing her; other times, it was the only reason I could find plausible. Why else would she be so interested in meeting Uchiha Sasuke, after all?

But now I know.

“No,” I tell her, a little quietly, in a small attempt to ease her. “I only wished to be unknown while here.”

Hinata’s face cools, fading into a soft pink. She looks around The Archive, rubs her palms into the armrests, and muses. “Because it’s an escape.”

I nod. “That’s right.”

“I understand.” Shyly, she turns back to me. “It must have been . . . awkward. Me talking about you all the time. I’m embarrassed.”

“I never looked down on you for it. I was the one deceiving you, after all.”

Another, small smile warms her mouth. An expression I’ll quietly admit I miss; an expression that, sometimes, I would peel my eyes away from my files to search for, to stare at as she would jump from one paragraph to another in her books.

“Did you ever plan on telling me?” she asks.

“Once you were prepared to meet me,” I say.

“A-And . . . you never thought I was stupid for not realizing?”

That irritation returns, squeezing into my lungs, but I hold it back and say, simply, “Never.”

And she wilts — but, then again, wilting doesn’t perfectly apply to Hyuuga Hinata. Not in an instance like this. Wilt implies decay, the foreshadowing of death — a loss of something. But Hinata looks as if she is full, like she has everything right in the world. She wilts in the instance of shedding something heavy, something burdensome. And I think this, too, is nice to see; something I will search for in those moments of quiet, peeking up from my paper to look across from me, at that girl: the one always stuck in something. A book. Meditation. Her own, irreversible glee.

“Well,” she gleams, “I’m glad I know who you are now.”

She lifts, giddy, and makes her way through the alleys of shelves. Between book spines, I see her smile, and I feel myself reacting, smiling back.

______

She takes her book, sits, and reads, but only for ten minutes.

Then, she peels back from the pages, shifts in such a manner to grab my attention, and asks, “Will you continue to train me, Uchiha-san?”

I pause in my stance, having just returned from grabbing another file from the shelves myself. My knee barely touches the side of the chair, and I look down at her, considering.

Uchiha-san.

How aggravating such a name has become. Perhaps if I had a name much less poisoned by the tongues of Konoha citizens, I’d be less exhausted by its constant bringing up. And, usually, I can handle it. Ignore it. A mere prick of hay straw against my wall of iron. In a meeting with Finance, it’s ‘ Uchiha-san, it’s impossible’ this, and ‘ Uchiha-san, we don’t have the authority to do so’ that. And when the Chief of the Police Force makes his rounds in his muddy boots around my office, it’s nothing but ‘Uchiha-san, the reports say’ this, and ‘ Uchiha-san, crime has gone up again’ that. At work, I’m Uchiha-san. To Konoha, I’m Uchiha-san when I’m in hearing distance — Traitor and Bastard when not.

Here, in The Archive, where I’m meant to escape and breathe, I do not want to be merely Uchiha-san.

Especially not with her.

“Do I call you Hyuuga-san?”

Her head tilts back a little, surprised. “Um. N-No.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

Hinata presses the open textbook into her body, as if soothing it like a child. She examines The Archive in the same manner she had before, taking in the emptiness, the escapism of the organized shelves and plain wallpaper. A place that Uchiha Sasuke goes to leave behind the rest of the world. A place where, I’m starting to believe, Hyuuga Hinata goes for the exact same reason.

That familiar, inviting pink colors her face, and she says, a little shyly, a little blissfully, “Sasuke-san, would you consider continuing to train me?”

I rest my hand on the slant of my leg, slightly amused. “I can’t see your father being pleased with such an idea.”

“He wouldn’t be happy with me being here, either,” she notes.

“You wish to continue?” Anyone else with as little training as her, and that incident at the hospital might have frightened them from chakra control completely.

But, as always, Hinata doesn’t seem to follow expectations.

“I want to help,” she insists. “I want to use my byakugan for good.”

Finally, I sit once more, dropping my new file onto the pile of already-read ones. Her determination cannot be denied, but I think back to Lord Hiashi, to his final words to me.

“It doesn’t hurt to activate?” I’m sure I already know the answer, but I prompt it as a question for her sake.

I watch her hesitate, think to herself.

“No,” she eventually admits.

I want to push more. What reason would the Hyuuga have to lie about their byakugan? Why is it almost like they’re trying to hide it from the shinobi world? But I keep to myself — for now. Hinata has been forgiving enough today, and I don’t plan on straining this rocky path of forgiveness she’s laid out for me.

______

6:45 comes, and she fits into her heavy jacket and slides her heavy book back onto its designated spot on the shelf. She tells me, happily, that she’ll have to run back to the Inuzukas’ to get herself smelling like a dog before she can return home. Part of me itches to walk her there, to experience that strange placidity of being around her outside of The Archive. I’ll deliver her there, the cold making her face red and bright, and that Inuzuka dog will see and realize he’s not the only one she’s around. But, then again, we shouldn’t be seen outside The Archive in case word gets to Lord Hiashi, and I’m not too sold on the idea of watching her roll around with those mutts. I send her off with a huff, and she smiles, hovers by the door in the same way she had when she came, and promises to see me next Friday before leaving.

And I sit there. I soak in the alone, finding the small essence of her left behind in her departure.

And I tell myself I didn’t miss it. That I would have survived fine if she hadn’t come back, if things hadn’t been straightened out between us.

. . . But I prefer that she did. That she had been honest. That she had asked those questions, and that I could answer to the best of my ability. That I hadn’t scared her away. That, now with all the secrets brushed away, it’s starting to feel like . . . like something . . . like something that won’t leave me.

Which is stupid. Stupid, but true.

And now I can say that I’m starting to know her. Not that my not knowing her was an issue, something that I sought to be mended. But Kakashi has spent plenty of hours drilling into my skull that a shinobi’s survival is through connection, through the trust of others. Trust is not easy to achieve; especially not for me. And it’s not so much that I seek survival, but rather, if I were to meet my end, I wouldn’t want it to be due to my inability to follow my teacher’s most important rule. How pathetic that would be.

If I can . . . trust Hinata, then there is no backlash. No downside. And if she can trust me, then her chances of survival, too, would be all the stronger.

Learn about her, Sasuke, I tell myself, slowly shutting my file. Ask questions. Even the moronic ones.

I sigh, press my skull into the chair, and stare at the ceiling. Haven’t I been? What questions would I ever have to ask?

I think, feel a creeping cold beneath my skin, and remember.

Well, there is one.

A useless one. One that doesn’t even matter, that merely nags at my curiosity. But one to ask, nonetheless. So I tell myself I will next Friday. Some time between training and reading, I’ll ask.

. . . Ah, fuck it.

Plopping the file on the oval table, I stand, push through the door, and jump over the staircase. I scan the ground floor of the library, don’t find her, and I go out into the cold next. It’s dark out, streetlamps and the lights from windows shining into the streets. I map out Konoha in my head, vaguely remember where the Inuzuka live, and leap onto the roofs, jumping from one to the other, scanning the streets as I slowly make my way there. It hasn’t been that long since she left. She couldn’t have gone that far.

A flash of red catches my eye when I land on the roof of a residential building. A scarf, with dark hair tucked into it. There she is. With ease, I land in the street in front of her, and she jolts, peers through her own foggy breaths, and sees that it’s me.

“Sasuke-san?” She hurries up to me. “Is everything alright?”

“New Years’,” I say. The starkness of my voice makes her blink, then tilt her head in bemusement. “You had wanted to say something before the New Year. What was it?”

Her shoulders flinch into peaks, and the normal rosiness of winter chill on her face deepens into that startling, illuminating scarlet. Her hands cup her mouth, and she looks at her boots, then the wall of the home we’re stood next to, then at nothing in particular past me; then, finally, at me.

“Are you asking,” she whispers, “b-because you figured it out?”

I frown, puzzled. “I’m asking because I want to know.”

She shifts, wobbles, vibrates in a way that makes her still, statue-esque poses seem like a faraway dream. She is movement and nervous mumbling under her breath. Her chakra dances in the corners of her eyes.

“Um. Well. U-Um.” Her hands come up, meshed together. Hinata inhales, and her exhale is a trembling cloud of mist. Her reaction is peculiar and a little familiar, but I’m too stuck on her to try and wonder why. I find every strange thing about her, and I focus on it, curious, wildly intrigued. “You . . . w-well, you would often, u-um, joke . . . I guess . . . about me. About me, um, having a crush on Uchiha Sasuke.”

My lungs expand, and I stare at her.

“I guess . . . you weren’t too far off.”

Chapter Text

With her confession clouding in the air and the heavy gray of winter hanging close to the slanted rooftops above our heads, I consider, for a moment, how this could have played differently. Not that it has to. Nor does it need to. But I find that, oddly, I cannot fathom the present, the direction of this situation, the words that are still warm from her mouth. I have to look at it in a different way, a different angle. This is what shinobi are meant to do: consider all possible angles. Even if those angles are long past happening. Even if those angles are meaningless.

I think about how this might have been revealed differently. Before Naruto’s attack. Before the revelation of my identity. If Naruto had never taken that mission, nothing from the past few weeks would have transpired the way it did, and my interactions with Hinata would remain how they had been prior: normally. We would read and train together. I’d still refer to her in my head as History Girl, and she would use whatever hidden nickname she had for me, and it would all be normal.

She might bring up Uchiha Sasuke again, at some point. She might say she’s ready to meet him, and in my mild moment of panic, I might scoff at the idea. ‘ Excited, aren’t you?’ I’d say. ‘ You really do have a crush on him.’

And what if, this time, she didn’t object? What if her face turned that pretty pink and her eyes lagged away, trying to hide her embarrassment, the easiness of her emotions on her face? What if she laughed a little, smiled a little, and said, ‘ Yeah. Yes. I guess I do.’

What would I do?

I think I’d consider her for a moment. I’d place my files away, fold the paper into the chair, lean forward in my seat, and say, ‘ You don’t know him.’ And when she nods and grins, I might say, ‘ You’ve never seen him.’ She’ll laugh a little more. ‘ He’s a traitor. He’s not a good person. Why would you like him?’ And History Girl will sparkle and glow, that glint of glee, of absolute adoration, brightening her eyes, bringing so much to them that I can’t understand, that Uchiha Sasuke has no right to spark in such a person. I’ll frown, and I’ll say, gravely, ‘ I’m him, you know. I’m Uchiha Sasuke.’

And she will gasp and stare, curl up in surprise, firm-jointed and shaken. You? she’ll think. All this time, it’s been you?

‘Of course it has been! Are you blind? I’ve been here this whole time! Every second. Isn’t it obvious I’m him? All these weeks, I’ve listened to you talk about me, gawk over me. You say you’re not in love with me, but I never believed you. It’s expected. I saw it coming a mile away. Are you embarrassed? I’ve known from day one, and I haven’t said a word about it. I just let you prattle on. I let you have your hopes. I stood by and watched, and I never stopped you, because I —’

Because . . . .

Sleet slips from the roof, falling with a wet splat on the concrete street. I stir, warm up, steam, and blink down at Hinata.

Despite my contemplation, such a thing never would have happened, never could have transpired. Because, like she said, it wasn’t Uchiha Sasuke she was attracted to. It wasn’t the name, the power, the danger that followed the ink text in the paper. Who she liked was that sad, mean, governmental-slave who lived such a boring life that he spent his Friday evenings in a fucking basement archive that no one in Konoha visits — no one but her. That’s who she likes. That’s who she’s confessing to right now, every patch of her skin that the eye can see a striking pink, neon against the dull hue of late January. She didn’t give much of a damn about Uchiha Sasuke until she knew that he and that man she would read and meditate with were the same person. He had been merely a shadowed figure that she hoped would be able to, somehow, help her with her eyes; her family’s ‘curse’, as she calls it.

Hope. That’s what he had been.

But now he’s me. I’m Uchiha Sasuke.

. . . But haven’t I always been?

I frown as my body turns frigid. The cold is beginning to drag into my bones. The soles of my old boots are worn and wet, soaking in the melting ice and slush of the street. I’ll have to buy a new pair. I should have before winter came, but I didn’t care to back then. Too busy. Too annoyed with the world.

Sighing, I step forward. Hinata jolts.

“Come on,” I murmur. “I’ll make sure you get to the Inuzuka.”

“Well.” Her knees lock up, stubborn to not move. Her mouth drops, startled, then winds up, then crinkles. Her shoulders are pointed, as if folded into origami mountains. When I’m next to her and find she’s not moving, I look down at her again, and I can’t stop my focus on her face, the mesmerization of her flush, the overwhelming heat of it all. She’s blasting heat, and yet, I’ve never felt more cold in my life. I keep walking, and she hiccups on something, fidgets, then pops her knees into moving, forcing herself to follow me. “. . . Well.”

And that is the end of it. I leap onto the rooftops, following her, chakra submerged deep into my core. So far deep I feel dead and empty, lost of something. I watch her take this turn and that, going along stretches of sleet-covered streets. Some people greet her in passing. No one notices me on the roofs. As we approach the Inuzuka household, homes become more spaced, and I must leap further and further. When I see it in the distance, see that long stretch of land the Inuzuka own for the dogs to run through, I stop. And as if sensing it, Hinata stops, turns back, and lifts her chin to look at me.

She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t do anything, really. She just tugs a bit at her scarf before dropping her head and continuing on. I hear the cacophony of dogs barking and the clack of sliding doors and yells. I leave before I get a look at that moronic Kiba’s face. I don’t feel myself going home. I slip out of my torn boots, and I wander, feeling like a phantom, like a spirit that lurks the remains of the Uchiha Estate. The old dojo has no appeal. The weapons room does not tempt me. The engawa and courtyards and hanging balcony over the frozen remains of a creek bring no interest. I go to the bathroom and peel off my damp, cold clothes and stand in the shower, taking a while to turn it on, then merely standing under the lukewarm water when I find the strength to lift my hand and turn the handle.

I go to bed without eating. I can’t feel my stomach.

______

Sleep is miraged with something citrus and distant, foggy to the senses, yet familiar enough. It blooms against the old papers of old books. This isn’t just Friday night. It’s Saturday night and Sunday night, as well. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night, that smell stuck inside of me. My legs are tense, and my chest feels clogged with the heating system of The Archive. I go back to bed, and it comes back, and the darkness colors into the blurred outlines of a dream. The citrus turns artificial; the cleaner they use. I feel the carpet under my body. I wake up again, and this time, I’m in the The Archive, and Hinata’s sitting next to me, laughing. ‘ How strange. You fell asleep here!’ Or, sometimes, I wake up in my office, and she’s still there, and time has turned back to New Year’s Eve.

‘I’m a little in love with you,’ she says, and I wake up again, back in my room. It’s four in the morning. My chest hurts and boils. I don’t try to go back to sleep. If I do, the dream might continue.

Monday morning, I arrive at work with a cold stuck in my throat. There’s fever burning against my temples, and it travels down my neck, beneath my spine, my ribs. It melts into my heart, jolting it, speeding up its beat, as if producing more blood circulation will help fight off the illness. Maybe it does. I don’t know how these things work. I stopped caring when I became the last Uchiha alive. All I know is that my chest feels clawed, chewed up. Gnarled. Far more irritated than my head or the aches in my joints.

I’m left alone for a while. I push my desk lamp far away so the light doesn’t bother me and coax the slight rumbling in my head to grow into a headache. I do what I can, annoyingly sluggish. My focus fades at random intervals, no matter what I try to keep it steady. I get through half of the important documents I have to look over before sending Kakashi’s way, then I check my schedule, see that I have three meetings today, and frown. One is here. The other two are across the village. Fantastic.

Like clockwork, Shizune knocks at the door at the same time she does every day. She comes in, smile slowly dropping as she comes closer and gets a better look at my state.

“Don’t,” I warn as her mouth opens. “I know. And no, I’m not going home.”

She takes the half-stack of paperwork I managed to finish and gives me a look. Usually, I’d be able to get double, sometimes triple, that amount done by the time she comes in to pick up stuff for her to present to Kakahshi. When I’m not on three hours of sleep. When it doesn’t feel like my own heart has turned into one of those shaggy, giant mutts the Inuzuka train, big-pawed and sharp-toothed.

“I’ll tell Kakashi-sama,” she threatens.

Fuck. After Naruto’s scare, I know he’s not taking any chances. A minor cough could send me home for the week.

I sneer, “I have meetings. I’m not cancelling them.”

“Then have Nakahara-san —”

“No.” Nakahara, the common man, might as well throw my paperwork in the shredder and kick the Head of Recon in the dick with the kind of work he does.

Shizune smiles. “Then I suppose Kakashi-sama must get involved.”

Of course. Isn’t that how she always gets her way? Use Kakashi as an end-all for every argument we have — because even the Advisors can’t refuse a direct order from their Hokage. Sitting back in my chair, I wipe my hand down my face. It’s clammy and warm. Annoying. Isn’t it obvious I’m fine? It’s not going to kill me if I don’t isolate myself at the estate; and even if I did, I doubt I’ll get much rest. Not with this tightening chest. This claustrophobic feeling right between my ribs.

“Do me a favor,” I sigh, “and cut this stupid thing out of me.”

I thump my chest, but the beating does not slow down.

Shizune’s face screws up. “You’re sick, Sasuke,” she says. “You’re starting to ask for strange things. You can’t work.”

And I hate it, but she’s right. My posture relaxes, giving her the okay to return to the front of my desk, finished documents shuffled into one arm as the other grabs from the unfinished stack.

“Give me an hour to go over everything with Nakahara-san,” I mutter.

She nods, opens the door with the heel of her foot, and bows her head. “I’ll inform Kakashi-sama. Get better, Sasuke.”

She shuts the door behind her. I take my time going over my meeting papers, adding notes for the common man — if he has the brain to read them, that is. That headache is beginning to form, though I’m sure this has nothing to do with my illness. When I’m done, I organize my desk, put my planner away, switch off the lamp, pull on my coat, then head over to the next office over, grimacing at the number plate before knocking. He lets me in, and I find him behind his desk, a mug of black tea by the lip of the book he’s reading. The wall behind him is decorated with drawings from his grandchildren and photos of his family and what looks like a vacation home somewhere south. His office has a window, and the natural light casts blue light into the common man’s silver hair. He smiles when he sees me. I don’t smile back.

“Uchiha-san. Heard you were feeling under the weather. It’s that time of year, I suppose.”

Looking down on me, as expected. I drag a seat over and drop the pile of meeting packets on his tidy desk.

“These are important,” I state. “I cannot cancel them, so you’ll have to take them on.”

He hums, pulling out his own, large planner, flipping to today’s date with ease. I tell him the times, and he checks, finds he’s free those hours, and jots them down. Then we go through the packets one-by-one, and I make sure to point out the notes he should follow. Communication needs to go over new technology they’d like to bring in for their Internal and External Divisions. The Academics Department has to do their yearly criteria overview for the year. And then, of course, Recon wishes to meet with me again to go over intel they’ve procured. Intel the common man will know nothing about, will look over with a smile and nod. He’ll think it silly. He won’t even realize how important such information might be. No more war, right?

“The Head of Recon will give you two copies of his reports.” One for Lord Hokage, one for me. “Deliver it to my office once the meeting is over. I’ll look it over when I return.”

He chuckles. “Uchiha-san, I know how these meetings go. I’ve been an Advisor longer than you have been alive.”

Does he think that’s a badge of honor? When Konoha decided the Uchiha were enough of a threat to make one of their own massacre the entire clan, he was on that Council. He was in favor of it — of course, he was! He doesn’t know anything. Not a damn thing!

My fist clenches against my knee. “Read my notes, and try not to be dismissive.”

The common man’s smile is tight in the corners. “My boy. I’m not as improper as you seem to think I am.”

I say nothing, standing and bowing stiffly before leaving.

______

I still don’t feel like eating when I come back home. I grab a few bottles of water from the fridge, down them, then sit by my bed and read. The text is small, molding together as my eyes turn heavy. Everything feels warm. Even the paper threatens to burn my fingertips. I change, force myself into bed, and try to rest. I can feel every minute click by. I waft into that feeble state of near-slumber, still aware of myself and my surroundings, but also halfway into REM, where things begin to appear behind my eyelids. I never go deeper than that. I just float on the surface, and every so often, my hand crawls to lay atop my chest, the unsteady and quick beat jumping against my palm.

When I feel the sharp and clinical stab of chakra approach the estate, I know it’s Sakura. Kakashi probably updated her. Her shoes land on the engawa, and when I hear the front door slide open, clacking against the doorframe, my eyes inch open, and I glare at the ceiling, then the clock by the bed. 3:12. Her lunch break.

Sitting up, joints popping, I wheeze a little and anchor my arm back so that my spine is up against the wall. I feel sticky with sweat, hair clinging to my neck, the sheets stuck to my ankles. Sakura comes into my room after tapping her knuckles into the wall. Her eyes narrow, obviously displeased, as she shuffles over in the guest slippers to the side of my bed. One hand holds a few plastic bags, mostly full of food. She knows me well enough to know my cupboards are mostly empty and that my fridge wouldn’t have anything nutritional enough for her standards. Her icy hands touch the side of my face. It feels a little nice.

She clicks her tongue. “You look awful.”

“I feel fine,” I lie.

“I bet it’s the flu. Kami-sama, Sasuke. And you were dumb enough to go to work like this?”

I keep my mouth shut, knowing she’ll just cut me off if I try to say anything. She drags out a new thermometer from one of her bags, then a box of medicine. Sakura sticks the thermometer into my mouth, using that cool, medic-nin tone as she tells me to keep it under my tongue. Momentarily, she leaves to grab another bottle of water from the fridge, cracking the lid off and dropping two pills into my hand as the thermometer beeps. I take the pills as she reads my temperature.

“High,” she muses. “Symptoms?”

“Short temper,” I drone. “Headaches. Hatred for the world. My shoulders ache from carrying this damn village ever since I came back.”

“Har-har.” She stands, twisting the handles of the plastic bags around her wrists. “Just stay there. You have a fever, but it’s not bad, and I don’t want to cool it down unless it gets bad. Did you know a fever is your body fighting off the illness? Probably not. You and Naruto would be dead without me, I swear. Stay awake while I make something.”

She disappears into the kitchen, so I rest my skull against the wall, eyes adjusting to the dimming light as the sun gets closer and closer to the horizon. In the distance, I hear clanking from the kitchen and the shuffling of Sakura. I hear the hiss of something on the range and smell rice in the cooker. The edge of tension slides off my body, and I relax a little, settling into my exhaustion, though I make sure to stay awake as per Sakura’s orders. I can’t say I’m unused to someone being in my home. She and Naruto come to bother me a good amount of times, though not as often as in the past now that we’re all severely busy building up Konoha from the war. And it’s not that I’m unused to Sakura’s care, though, normally, her concern for my health is often in the territory of the hospital after a particularly nasty injury or when I’d come in to get my arm occasionally examined. But when the two are put together — healing in my estate — I feel a little unnerved, but also a little relieved.

To know someone cares enough to come see me on their lunch break is relieving.

My eyes shut as I relax into the sound of kitchen noise and muffled bird songs from outside. Sweat rolls down my neck. I think about work some, then I wonder how Naruto is faring. He’d finally been released from the hospital, but I can’t imagine Kakashi wants him anywhere outside Konoha until they get a better idea on who could have attacked. Naruto’s memory is shaky, but I believe it will clear up once he falls back into normal habit. My time working in Reconnaissance taught me that, sometimes, it takes a normal day for memories to clear up. Hopefully, I’m back in my office when that day comes.

He’ll probably come bother me, either way, I figure. Come to annoy me, to badger me about meeting the Hyuuga who saved him.

Like that, my mind flashes to that slushy scene. Us between two buildings. A narrow street. Her face peeking out from her scarf.

‘You would joke about me having a crush on Uchiha Sasuke,’ she says, and her eyes look straight into mine. ‘ I guess you weren’t far off.’

And I wonder, foggily . . . if she knew that I was ill, would she be here, too? Would she and Sakura show up at the same time, staring at each other, a little surprised. Knowing Sakura, she’ll just have to take one look at Hinata to know. Oh, it’s like that, she’ll think, because Sakura knows the look of someone who’s got a thing for Uchiha Sasuke. For the longest time, she had that same look. Then they’ll both come in. Sakura will bring out the only two pairs of guest slippers I have. They’ll come into my room together. They’ll see I’m a mess. Sakura will take my temperature and make me swallow down medicine, and Hinata will stand awkwardly to the side, overlooking my small bookshelf. When Sakura leaves to make food, Hinata will finally sit next to me, nervous and pink.

‘Sorry,’ she’ll say. ‘I’m the one causing it, aren’t I?’

“Causing what?” The burn in my throat makes me realize I spoke out loud. I open my eyes and look at that spot by my bed, empty.

Dumbass. Why are you thinking about her? A rush of longing clenches into my chest. My heart leaps, then shakes. I hiss in pain, then knock my head into the wall. Stop.

As if she’d come. As if she’d want anything to do with me. Pressure forms behind my eyes, hot and shocking. My rinnegan loops. I can feel it turn, reacting to my unstable chakra flaring up. I massage my thumb between my brows again, trying to ease my headache away, forcing my eyes shut.

Focus, focus.

‘Don’t you feel clogged?’ She asks. As if she’s here. But she isn’t. ‘Doesn’t it hurt here?’

My body jolts. My eyes snap open. “Don’t —”

My hand lifts, as if to grab her, to stop her from touching me. But, again, I’m alone here.

The crown of my head scrapes against the wall as I glare at the ceiling once more. “ Damn it ,” I groan, “I’m going insane.”

______

Sakura returns with two servings of oyaku and yuzu-cha. I rest the bowl on my knee and eat slowly, trying to remind my stomach that it exists and that I need to eat. Sakura occupies my mind with recent work drama, sometimes interrupting herself to remind me to take a drink of the yuzu. She’s done with her meal before I’m even halfway through mine. She tells me there’s extra for dinner, and that she’ll come back tomorrow to check on me. When I tell her I’ll be fine by then, she laughs in my face.

She takes my temperature again, then starts getting ready to go back to the hospital. Her jacket smells like citrus surface cleaner, and I think of The Archive, then Hinata. My lungs inflate, then squeeze. I grab at my chest, which catches Sakura’s attention.

“What is it?” Grabbing my hand, she checks my pulse, eyes blinking wide. “ Kami-sama, Sasuke. It’s racing.”

I try to pull my wrist away, but she holds onto it harder, watching the clock for a minute to pass as she counts.

“Fast for a resting heart,” she mumbles, then feels my forehead. “What is going on with you?”

I’m starting to get an idea what’s causing this, and it makes my gut thrum and my stomach feel nonexistent again. Suddenly, the need to be alone is overwhelming. I tell Sakura I’m fine, I just need to rest, and that I’ll see her tomorrow. She hesitates, checks the time, realizes she’ll be late if she doesn’t leave soon, and goes out to put on her shoes and make the journey back to the hospital. I eat the rest of the oyaku, set it on the side table, and lay as a mess on my bed, body tingling and pulse trotting.

______

I don’t feel as bad on Tuesday, but Wednesday isn’t any better. By Thursday, however, I start to feel more myself. A collection of steam and thunder is still stuck in my torso, but the fever is gone, and so is the fatigue. Sakura gives me the okay to go back to work, so Thursday night, I train a little, warm up my underworked muscles, shower, eat, and try to sleep at the usual time I do on weekday nights. I linger in bed for a while, annoyed, knowing what will come with sleep. I haven’t been so wary of sleep since I was a child, haunted by nightmares Itachi had instilled into me. This is nowhere on the same level, of course. These are idiotic dreams. Meaningless things.

And they come like they always do. The rumble of the heating system. Fluttering pages. Lilac. Why does she smell like lilac? I wake up on the carpeted floor of The Archive, the dreamy outlines of everything glowing, flickering. Hinata sits next to me, stuck in her old book, not even aware that I’ve awoken next to her. Has she always smelled like that? I sit up. I grab the top of her book, lowering it, and she finally notices me.

‘Good morning.’

I look at the clock. ‘It’s the afternoon. Idiot.’

She turns her body and rests both hands on my knees. I can feel her skin through the thick fabric of my pants. The muscles in my back tense up.

‘Tomorrow’s Friday,’ she coos. ‘Are you going to come see me tomorrow?’

The clock clicks by too quickly. What does that mean? My head feels full of helium. ‘Why should I?’

Hinata grins, pushing her face close to mine. Something strained rumbles in the back of my throat. Her airy and teasing ‘coward’ burns into my face. I grit my teeth. I dig my fingers into the carpet, and they sink in like it’s glue or mud. My body starts to sink back, the clock ticks, and I wake up in my bed, vibrating. I feel the pressure of hands still on my legs, pinning me down. The sun isn’t up. The air is cold.

Chakra steams from my eyes. I swipe it away, get up, and spend the early parts of Friday morning training in the dojo.

______

It’s 4:00 in the afternoon. The first Friday of February is -16 C. It’s cold enough to rip into your skin, to dig into your organs and make every corner of your soul icy. I linger outside The Village Library just for a while. I want to feel it tear me apart. The air circulates into my lungs as I breathe in, and it burns deep inside my core. My chakra fwooshes. Eventually, I come inside, grab the paper with my numb hand, and then I slowly descend the stairs and enter The Archive. It’s blasting heat inside, so I’m quick to peel off my layers before I come to the shelves, find where I’ve left off, and stand there. Stand there. Stand there . . .

What am I doing?

My arm lifts up, cranks, like it doesn’t belong to me, like it’s a machine. I grab the file, then the next, and then I go to my seat, and I eye the clock, and seven minutes have already passed, which means I have eighteen minutes left. Eighteen minutes to do what I usually do. To follow routine. This isn’t a test. It’s a normal Friday. So I trace my gaze over the elder’s weather complaints and praising words for a local cafe they love to frequent. I check out the ads, then turn the paper on its back and start working on Sudoku. My heart is busy inside my chest. I scowl and tell myself to not expect anything. She might not come. Actually, she probably won’t.

Which is fine.

Still, I watch the clock turn from 4:24 to 4:25. I hear the dull padding of boots on the ceiling, and I wonder if one of them is hers. My senses try to expand, to seek out her chakra, but I harness it back and fold the paper away, flipping to the first page of my file first. The door creaks open. I don’t have to look to know. Hinata shuffles in, hands rubbing together, skin on skin. She comes to her chair, wraps her coat over the back. I don’t hear her sit. I look up, finding her looking at me.

She starts, “Is this—”

“Do you want to meditate?” I ask.

She flinches. I don’t know why. My tone isn’t particularly cutting. It’s just normal.

“I . . . .” Now her hands wrap together. I try not to stare. “I don’t know if I can.”

Right. Because of me. Obviously. I stand, sighing. “A shinobi needs to be able to control themselves. No matter the distraction.”

“Am I to be a shinobi?”

Shit. What am I saying? “Come on, Hinata.”

She rubs the back of her hand against her rosy cheek, rolls up the long sleeves of her sweater, and finally maneuvers around the collection of chairs to fold herself into the right posture on the floor. I stand next to her. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I worry that if I sit, my hand will get stuck in the floor like it had in my dream. Which can’t happen, of course; but I stay standing, nonetheless. Hinata crosses her legs, perching each foot on the other knee, then straightens her back.

“This is strange,” she whispers.

I look down my nose at her. “Close your eyes.”

She does. Her first inhale is weak, and the following exhale is shuddering. My insides twist and loop. I ignore it, and I listen to her breaths slowly become even and smooth. My rinnegan activates, coiling into the right pattern, and I see the glow of her chakra trickle through her body from one major point to the other. It glistens. It travels like a river. It brightens the shadowed parts of her being. It’s nice to watch. It’s enchanting, even. It’s so fucking beautiful. 

The heat blows against her form, tossing a bit of hair into her face. Then, it washes into me, and I think I smell lilac soap and something else. Something I don’t try to put a name to. Throat tightening, I turn away. I keep my movements quiet to not break her concentration. One step tucked behind the other, I drift back to the collection of chairs, to my stack of files. I lift the one on top, laying it against my wide palm. It spreads out before me, to be read, and I remind myself, Focus. Don’t look. Concentrate.

I try to read, but nothing sticks. Right as I think I’m about to understand the paragraphs laid before me, I feel the waterfall mist of her chakra, and I hear a soft exhale, and I burn and sneer. Damn it. Don’t people know there’s an archive down here? Shouldn’t more people come down here? It may not be full of those silly books that citizens and shinobi alike love to waste their time on, but there is something here. Appeal. In the books. Within the shelves. Appeal beyond the meditating girl—

“Stop,” I grit.

Hinata stirs. “Oh. I didn’t realize how long . . . .”

I check the clock. An hour has passed.

It feels like seconds.

______

Routine. We fall into routine. My files, her history book. Our seats. My eyes seem to no longer recognize the words, so I stare at the blank parts, the beige spaces, the crease of the middle. I examine the page numbers in the top corners, and then the scribble of a name in the upper middle. I feel like I’m starting my descent into Hell.

“Sasuke-san.”

Do I want to look at her? Not really. Even the basic things of life feel annoying. Breathing is a chore. Reading is a hassle. Sitting in silence is both distracting and inviting. I manage a hum to acknowledge her call.

Hinata pauses, then says, “Um. It’s just — um, the last time we spoke, I said something . . . .”

She stops, and she won’t keep going. I sneer. “I remember.”

“Oh. That’s —” Her sentence suddenly ends, as if she bit her tongue. Now, suddenly, I want to look at her. I want to see that expression. Maybe it will change things. Is she furious? Maybe disappointed? What do I want to see? What will get me out of this blurry, muddled mood of mine? “It’s not that I’m trying to, um, force an answer or anything. I guess, um, y-you might need time. I understand. Just, w-well, if you could tell me how much time you need or, um, when you have an answer or not . . . that would . . . .”

I rest my file onto my knee, settle back, and let my head rest against the back of the chair. The irony that a previous Head of Reconnaissance being this inept, this wordless, this answerless and totally clueless, is bitter, but also tickling against the underside of my tongue. I almost grin. I almost fucking laugh. If only they had protocol for these sorts of situations. A lengthy book to read. Uchiha Sasuke of the past might even be mentioned a few times. Now, we’ll go over how to not accept a woman’s confession. First, we’ll approach the ‘Hard Truth’ course. If we look at the various examples of Uchiha Sasuke, we’ll see that, sometimes, a steadfast no is all that needs to be said. 

But this isn't the right time for that approach. This is different. This isn’t Sakura or Ino in the Academy. This is Hyuuga Hinata, an ex-miner from Iwa, who is politely asking for some sort of hint, some sort of reply.

But doesn’t that mean that if it weren’t Hinata, there would be no abnormalities? I’d have no qualms, no disinterest, no hesitations in my usual approach to such confessions? Which, therein, would imply that it’s because it’s Hinata that things are different. Not some otherworldly force. Not a mere shake in reality. Hinata is the reason. An annoying, moronic, pestering reason.

“It . . . hurts,” she whispers, making my head snap up, “when I’m ignored.”

And, finally, after a week of constant rushing and bouncing and trotting and racing, my heart stops. It skips, then it stops, and I’m not sure if my expression shows the pain I feel in that flashing moment. “I’m sorry.”

She smiles slightly. “It’s alright. I understand. Cursed eyes. Not very appealing, are they?”

Cursed is not the word I would use, but I make no effort to correct.

I just say, dully, “I’m not sure.” And then I force my gaze back onto my file. And I read, or try to, or pretend to; mostly, I’m thinking about what the hell to say, and I’m aggravated with my own lack of answer, and I’m vexed that she continues to look so lowly on her dōjutsu. As if shinobi wouldn’t kill to have such power. As if I do not harbor some iota of envy because a civilian has something beyond even my own, nearly-limitless eyes. I think Damn those Iwa bastards, and then I thank Kami that they ultimately did not recognize the Hyuuga’s ability. Because now they are here. Now she is here. Someone who writes the paper to support me. Someone who calls me her friend. Someone—

There’s a scream. It’s more of a shriek. Off in the maze of shelves. It sounds a little like Hinata. Actually, a lot like Hinata. I look up, again, and I see the empty chair and her coat and scarf hanging on the back. I jolt up, file tumbling onto the floor. No one has come into The Archive. What is there to scream about? Has someone snuck in? Used a jutsu to enter? Chakra blazes my dōjutsu alive as I turn the corner, searching, readying an attack — but all I see is Hinata, history textbook halfway pushed into its spot on the shelf. There’s a crooked grin that dips into something a little meek, a little ashamed.

“Sorry,” she says.

I take a second to look around, confirming that there’s no potential threat among us. I come closer, frowning.

“I heard you scream.”

“I just wanted to get your attention.” Then, oddly, she laughs. “You’ve hardly looked at me all day. I thought you’ve started hating me.”

I feel that clenching, aching spatter of a heartbeat again. “Of course, I don’t.”

“Joking.” Hinata pushes the book all the way, turns slightly, and taps my shoulder playfully. “Just a bit of revenge.”

And then it all goes back to normal — the normal of the past week, of course. That short, awkward thump that never stops, again and again; and that heat that trails the back of my neck and makes me feel warm with fever, even though I’m fine. Completely fine. But, then again, so far from fine that I turn blur-headed and off-centered again. The top of her head just reaches my chin. It must have been a sight to see someone like her in the mines, in that garb they must have had to wear. Suddenly, I have a keen need to see such a sight. It pins itself so deep inside of me that I have no chance of untacking it.

Her book pushes out a little, the spine not equal with the others. I push it in until it fits like it should, and when I look down, Hinata has her back against the wood, and she’s staring at me expectantly, and I think I almost see myself in her irises. A cloudy silhouette of me.

“Revenge?” I muse. “Is that right?”

She’s that color I like. The one I like to think only I can make her turn. My ego swells happily at that thought, and I lean down a little more, wondering if I can get her any more red than she already is. Her byakugan looks magenta. Her lashes are violet. I feel her breath on my chin. Soft and shallow. A little quick, like she’s excited. And she’s not the only one. I can’t even feel my own breathing. Maybe I’m not. Maybe my lungs have stopped, overworked by my heart.

I think, suddenly, that I ought to kiss her. Then I stop. What? That can’t be a good idea. No matter if she likes me or not, she quite clearly asked for an answer, and I not-so-clearly asked for some time. That just happened. Didn’t it? It would do me no good to kiss her.

But her hands are on my shirt — when did they get there? She’s holding onto the collar of my shirt. Clearly, she doesn’t want me to leave just yet. So either I just loom above her like this, like some freak, or I kiss her . . . and we go from there . . . .

Damn it all.

I turn my chin, and I come in, and I kiss her. It’s not a brilliant one. Truthfully, I don’t quite know how to kiss someone. It wasn’t a priority of mine to learn, nor did I ever allow myself to be in such a circumstance to experience it. It’s not very useful for an avenger. For the longest time, I figured it wasn’t anything any shinobi would waste their time trying. Half of us die before we reach thirty anyway. What’s the point?

. . . Now, I guess, I realize.

Just the feeling of her mouth is nice. More than nice. The kind of nice that makes my racing heartbeat make sense. If I knew what to do, or how to do it better, maybe it would feel even better than ‘more than nice’. My hand hangs from the shelf overhead, steadying me against her, the front of my shirt just barely touching hers. I feel a little strange, suddenly, and a little feverish.

Hissing, I pull away. Hinata blinks rapidly, surprised.

“Shit,” I mutter. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Her whole person droops. “You don’t like me.”

“ No.” That rushes out a bit too quickly than it should have. I huff and shake my head. “I was just sick a bit ago. That’s what I mean.”

She changes again. Morphs. She always does that. It’s so easy to see what she feels because her entire body shows it.

“Th-Then, um, if I say I don’t mind —” Her grip on my shirt hardens, barely bringing me closer, “will you kiss me again?”

Every clogged part of my body evaporates. Weightless. Maybe even formless.

“I . . . might,” I manage.

She smiles, then grins, then gleams. “Here.”

Her hands press into my jaw, anchoring me, leading me. I follow her lead, and she fits her mouth against mine in a different way — some way that feels divergent, that makes every nerve in my mouth stand on end. It’s like — it feels like she’s — I don’t know. I can’t really tell. What she’s doing to me — I can’t figure it out — but it’s like she’s taking me apart. Pinching molecules away from me. Replacing them with something. With herself, maybe. Her teeth graze my lip, and I shudder and lean in, chest against hers, pushing her more into the shelf. She gasps, then hums softly against my mouth. My gut boils. My stomach tightens up. Something good lights up my spine, crawling up, inching into my brain until I am nothing but Good.

She breathes through her nose, then releases my mouth to gulp down air. Her hands are shaking with adrenaline. Some of her nails dip into my hair, and I almost grab them, almost slide them further along my skull.

Standing on the tips of her toes, she kisses me again, lightly and quickly. Then she rests her skull against the shelf and catches her breath. My fingers are dug into the wood, and I consciously have to loosen them before pulling my hand away. I can’t see the time, but my inner clock tells me it’s nearing the time she usually leaves. That’s the thing about routines. When you get used to them, you start to tell things like this.

I don’t move away from her. Not yet. “I’ll make sure you get there.”

She nods shyly, hands sliding down my face and dropping to her sides. We pull away, wrap ourselves in coats, and I hold the door open and let her lead the way. Halfway out of the library, she slows down and holds onto the sleeve of my missing arm, and I let her. We’ll have to part once we’re outside. I’ll take the route of the roofs, watching her, following with ease. But, for now, I let her.

Chapter Text

It takes a week of consideration, of hesitation. I’m not the kind for such an annoying habit. Hesitation gets a shinobi killed. When one acts, they must do so with certainty, with confidence. This was drilled into me even before the Academy — crushed into my brain by my own father. He did not appreciate the timidity I showed as a young child. He did well in ripping it from my soul before I turned six. I doubt my mother was very fond of the idea, but I was too young to maintain any upstanding memories. It’s all murky now, those times; half because of the natural fade of young memories. Half because most of my childhood is clogged with the despair of the Uchiha massacre. But I still follow plenty of the lessons my father had taught me, consciously or not. And hesitation, I’ve always known, is something to avoid.

I have not been doing a . . . fine job at avoiding it recently.

Since last Friday, there has been a rather dramatic shift. Multiple shifts, really. An obvious shift between myself and Hinata. Since summer of last year — since those damn custodians came early into The Archive and unknowingly began something irreversible when they pushed two strangers to sit across one another for an hour — a slight shift has begun between us. Silent readers to the occasional passers of words. Acquaintances, then friends. History Girl to Hyuuga Hinata. But this most recent shift between us is different. Larger. Foreign. A confession that didn’t leave me with an immediate feeling of dread, of disgust, of absolute disregard.

And thus another shift emerges: a shift in myself. A shift into something I did not think likely for my person, like something in those books Sakura enjoys reading: cliche and childish. And maybe a slight shift into something in those books Kakashi likes to read: cliche and persistent. Ever since Friday, I have not been feeling myself. I recognize my body, my reflection, but nothing else feels familiar. My own chakra shocks through my system, as if it’s exploring my channels for the first time. My appetite has thinned, ebbing and flowing randomly in the evening, stuck in the knots of my stomach. I have to open the windows and let my bedroom turn frigid before I sleep, else it will be too warm and I will toss in my bed. I feel like another soul stuck in this body. Or maybe the soul, itself, has changed while the body stays stagnant. All of this caused by a change that transpired the moment my mouth had touched Hinata’s — so dramatically that, truthfully, that night, when I had returned home a mess of nerves and heightened senses, starved for something beyond food, I had begun to believe those Hyuuga had more than just their dōjutsu to look out for. Another ability trapped in their tongue, the kind to change a man, to make him feel claustrophobic in his own anatomy.

And, shit, there’s the cliche and the dramatics. What is wrong with me?

My week has been me readjusting to my own person, to the newness of whatever has become of me. And all that while, through work and training and cooking and restless slumber, I would consider, hesitate, and consider again. Play with the idea of something that, before ever meeting Hinata, I would never have let pass my mind. 

There is something I want to do.

And thus, come Thursday evening, I find myself, of all places, at Naruto’s. His cramp, little apartment building stuck between streets. The sun has just set, and the street lamps blink on, casting hollow yellow onto the pavement. The door is probably unlocked, but I knock instead of just entering. He does not know I’ve come. Hell, until an hour ago, when I fell to the ends of my ropes and gave in to my juvenile yearnings, I didn’t know I’d be coming here either. I can hear him fumble around and curse, his footsteps plodding over awkwardly. When he opens the door, he stares at me, frown perplexed.

Naruto is still in a ‘healing’ stage. On the outside, he looks perfectly fine; but all shinobi know how the outside can hide the brittle damage within. The chakra system does not simply return to normal after being cut off. In normal circumstances, it can take days to heal, reshaping to the flow of chakra within the body. Too much push, and it will be damaged back to stage one. But Naruto’s case was not so. Several minor points were cut off for an extended amount of time — points that have never been blocked off before due to the complete impossibility of hitting them accurately. The damage is difficult to calculate, but when Sakura had finally allowed him to leave, she deduced it would take him weeks — maybe a month — before his system was back in shape. This has led to the sad bastard staying in Konoha, taking on D-Ranks that require no chakra use. Hence him being home on a Thursday evening instead of doing something heroic.

“Eh?” I watch as a hopeful shine starts in the backs of his eyes. “Have I—”

“No,” I cut in, pushing past him, slipping from my shoes before entering the mess of his apartment. If I weren’t so used to the clutter, I would have left. “No missions. Nothing. You know Kakashi won’t let you get a foot out of Konoha until Sakura clears you.”

Naruto sighs heavily, scratching the back of his skull. “Which will take years. Shit, man, I’m fine, ain’t I? I mean — look at me.”

He means for me to activate my rinnegan to look at his system, but we both know it can only see the major points — not the smaller, damaged ones. I step over old laundry as he returns to his small kitchen, scraping through his cupboards before setting out two cups of instant ramen for us.

“You nearly died,” I drone.

He gives me a look over his shoulder. “Everyone’s so dramatic. Haven’t we all almost died? Isn’t that just how it is?”

I ignore him, stepping over more trash and mess and piles of clothes before I reach his small den, where a box television sits upon an old, low table. I can see myself in the black screen. There’s a pile of tapes next to it. Most of them borrowed from the movie place down the street. I guess this is how he’s chosen to spend his freetime. Not that I’m complaining. These movies are the main reason why I’m here, after all.

I crouch down, beginning to read the titles on the spines of the boxes.

Naruto comes up from behind, offering me the steaming cup of instant ramen. I take it without looking away.

“You want to watch something?” His voice is scratchy, like he can’t believe his own words.

When I find a title that seems to match one of Sakura’s books that she likes to rave about, I pull that from the pile and pop open the box. Naruto sits on the rug behind me, slurping at his noodles. When he sees the movie I’ve picked, he chokes.

“Romance?” he coughs. “Seriously?”

I say nothing. A part of me can’t believe I’m willing to go this far. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, then push the tape into the opening at the front before turning the television on. I settle back with him, stab my chopsticks into the sodium-soaked noodles, and stir the broth around before eating. The tape begins with trailers for other, up-in-coming movies to be released this summer. I hardly pay attention. A strange, unnerving feeling cloaks my body. I feel like dust. I feel formless and like I’m not even a part of reality anymore.

Naruto is rambling. He’s watched this movie, but borrowed it again because, eventually, Sakura wants to come over and watch it. Whenever she’s free again — which will probably take as long as his healing due to how busy things have gotten since Naruto’s attack. The hospital is requiring all medic-nins to renew their chakra training, revamping the course with more focus on the chakra system. Medical is worried that, if Konoha does not find Naruto’s attackers soon, more shinobi will be ambushed in the same manner. And, of course, holding the most accurate record in chakra unblocking is Sakura, so she’s the one in charge of all these training classes.

I can understand the paranoia. Even after Naruto’s interview about his attack, we weren’t given much answers. It was a surprise attack. He wasn’t even halfway to Iwa. I’ve read the documents of his recounting a dozen times. He was setting up for the night. He didn’t even sense their chakra. Suddenly, he was surrounded — six or seven of them, and their faces were covered in garb and masks. They moved like they weren’t human. Puppets had been my thought during my first read. But who could control so many, and how would puppets have the ability to block minor chakra points? He had fought, but the blows to his core left him unable to move within seconds. After that, he was in and out. They were moving him — to Konoha, we later found out. Delivered his body right to our gates before delivering the final blow that sent him into unconsciousness. A sign, or a warning. This is what we are capable of.  But a warning for who: Konoha, or someone in particular?

There’s a line at the end of those documents that begins to creep into my mind now. Before falling unconscious, Naruto has managed to gain enough control of his arm to knock a mask away. The face was a blur. He couldn’t make out any remarkable features except for one thing: their eyes. White. Milky — like film over the eyes of a dead animal.

The Byakugan. Which, as far as our knowledge goes, only the Hyuuga possess.

But the gate watchers’ report states no Hyuuga have left Konoha since their arrival a year ago. Not even for a short while. The Hyuuga have come, and the Hyuuga have stayed. And if, by some chance, this attack was struck by the Hyuuga left in Iwa, the Hyuuga here would have no connection to it. No mail has been sent or received. No messenger nin. No delivery birds. Nothing.

Was it the left-behind Hyuuga? Or is there another clan out there in possession of the Byakugan? Was Naruto mistaken? And if he wasn’t, and if it was the Hyuuga, what is their reason for such a threat, and do the Hyuuga living here, in our walls, share the same sentiment? The Council has spent the past week pondering these questions. Kakashi has asked to keep a close eye on the clan, but has put efforts into keeping the investigation quiet. Were word to spread, the rest of Konoha would demand for the Hyuuga’s deportation before we have any chance of finding answers.

As for me, I feel as though it’s quite obviously not the Hyuuga who are our enemies. What gain would they have to make war with us after finding home here? They are an isolated, prideful clan, but they hold respect for themselves and for Konoha. That, and they, quite clearly, have no desire to use their Byakugan for any reason at all. Lord Hiashi had made that abundantly clear during our last meeting.

Naruto nudges me. The movie has started. A woman and a man have met for the first time, and it’s quite clear that by the end of the movie, they will be madly in love. How dull. But, again, I had picked such a movie for a reason.

“Thinking about it?” he asks.

Naruto knows me well enough by now to know what I’m thinking about. Apparently, I get a certain face when I’m at work. I suppose I must have that kind of expression now.

“You’re sure,” I start, then stop, then continue, “that you saw the eyes?”

He hesitates. We’re not supposed to discuss it privately. Any information, new or old, should be discussed within Recon’s walls so that everything can be transcribed to a document for later overlooking. But I’m determined to know — not as a member of The Council, not as an Advisor, but as a shinobi. As Uchiha Sasuke who, in one way or another, has become too involved with the Hyuuga.

After a while, Naruto nods. “I’m sure. White. Just like I described.”

I frown at the movie.

After a moment, he speaks again. “That’s what the Hyuuga’s eyes look like, right?” Quiet and edged. Hesitant. And not for my sake. Naruto knows a Hyuuga saved him, after all, and he’s not the kind to speak vilely about someone he owes his life to.

“That’s right.”

“But if they attacked me, then why would they . . .”

“They didn’t attack you,” I state.

He’s confused by my confidence, but says nothing about it. The movie stretches on. I barely pay attention, but when the camera zooms in on the two, main characters — the woman and man — I tense, and I shift, and some of my breath stays in my lungs as they come closer, lean in, and kiss.

It happens before I can stop it. I feel the tightening, the fire of activation. The winding of my pupil. The pressure behind my eyes, thrumming. I do not look away from the screen. It’s a rather long scene. Sakura has told me about it, despite my unwilling company. The book is adventurous with romance, as she puts it. The main characters are not shy to display their affection, and it seems the movie has followed that notion religiously. I can feel the hardness of an Archive bookshelf behind me, wood stuck in my spine. Hinata’s smaller form trapping me there. Her hand at my collar. The whispered memory of her mouth on mine.

Suddenly, all the air leaves my lungs, and I look away.

“Dude . . . .” Naruto’s face is twisted up, horrified and disgusted. My mangekyo sputters out, receding back into my cones and rods, tattooing the scene on the surface of my brain. My own horror reflects across my face as the screen of the television fades to black before a new scene emerges. What the hell? I mean, it was my plan to . . . in a way, research. But couldn’t I have done it in a more sensible way? Now I have the idiot regarding me like a freak, and, in the shallow parts of my being, I feel like I am . He rubs his hands together, glances at his movie pile, then continues, “If you wanted to — I mean — I have better movies for this sort of thing if you want to borrow them —”

“No,” I say.

“Kakashi has even more if you want to —”

“ No.”

______

The television spits out the tape once the movie ends at the tail of credits. Naruto scratches his belly, slouches forward, and pulls it out. He doesn’t bother to rewind it, simply plugging it back into its box before he stares at it for some time, thinking, before he looks up at me.

“How come?” He finally asks that question that has been collecting on his tongue this whole time. How come I’m here? How come I picked a romance movie? How come, when that scene came up, my sharingan copied it directly into my memory?

I don’t want to answer. Or, maybe, I do. Naruto is annoying, and he makes a fuss about everything, and he’s a loud mouth and an idiot, but he’s one of the only trusted friends I have. If I were to talk about this, about this change starting slowly inside of me, wouldn’t he be the one to go to? Not Kakashi, who is technically my boss now, and not Sakura, who (despite recent years of maturity and her own spark of change) might find it awkward to talk about such things with the very person she had once given so much of herself to please. It would have to be Naruto — if I ever were to talk about it.

But why should I? Why can’t I merely keep it to myself? Is it that bad to keep a few things to myself? To not be forced to share every thought or feeling that came across my mind?

“That Hyuuga girl,” he says, slowly, “right?”

I frown. I must have, subconsciously, made it obvious. Only an idiot like Naruto would be able to figure it out if it were obvious.

“What’s her name?” he pushes.

My thumb massages the undersides of my fingers, and I say, lowly, “Hinata.”

And it’s as if I’ve spilled something confidential. It took me months to learn her name, and here I am, giving it out for free.

“Hinata-chan.” I hate how it sounds on Naruto’s tongue, but I do nothing about it. He means nothing about it. He’s just putting it to memory. “The same one who saved me, right?”

I nod, and Naruto thinks some more. He looks back at his pile of movie boxes, then pulls out a few from the bottom. He displays them on the floor between the two of us and tells me that he’s organized them on levels of intensity. The further right, the more scenes, and the more heavy they get. I can feel something warm stand on the hairs on the back of my neck. The unfamiliar winds of shame capture my gut as I consider the movies longer than I should.

“I mean,” Naruto starts once the awkward silence has stretched out too long for his confort, “you’re trying to impress her, yeah? So you need more examples. Get it?”

“You have way too many,” I say. “These can’t all be for Sakura.”

“Shut up and pick already.”

______

I dream about movies that night. I won’t divulge more, only that a certain face kept reappearing, and by the time dawn encroaches, I am already warm in the nooks of my bones. I travel to work with a lag in my step, unusual for me. I make sure to change my pace into something normal by the time I reach Hokage Tower. Hokages of the past follow me with their stone eyes. It feels as though they can see into me. They know why I am on edge today.

Throughout the morning, I watch the clock. Through meetings, after lunch, between documents. Shizune catches me a few times. She says nothing, only smiling demurely in a way that hints at her suspicions. She’s probably partially right in her guess. She has a way of understanding me at the worst of times, probably due to Kakashi’s influence. I can only hope she doesn’t say a word to him.

I waste no time once my work day is finished. I leave everything tidy for my return after the weekend, I pull on my coat, and I’m out of the door. Perhaps I’m making things up, but I hardly feel the road beneath me — as if nothing is keeping me up. As if gravity is light on my person today. The Library’s windows shine in the afternoon sunlight, blinding any approaching fool. I slip through the doors, plod down the steps, come into The Archive, and let out a breath when I find it empty. But, well, of course it is. No one comes down here. Almost no one. I feel one-sided as I pull out of my coat, draping it over the back of my usual seat. When I return from the shelves with a file under my arm, I stand there, staring at my coat, at my seat, at the table next to it. Something feels off. 

. . . Ah. The paper. I hadn’t grabbed one.

Something really is off with me today. Frowning, I log up the staircase to snatch a paper, then hurry back and sink into the cushioned chair and try to find the right way of sitting so that all this tension in my body will leave me. The muscles in my thighs won’t relax. They expand and harden. It’s not nerves; not in the typical sense. Despite every centimeter of my body feeling stiff and on edge, I don’t feel nervous. I’m not. Rather, I feel something skulkish. Something circling — like an enemy nin approaching from behind, readying to attack. I do not fear for my life. I know he is there, and I know he stands no match against me; but the telltale signs of fight or flight instincts rack through my body without care of my mindset.

In this instance, Hinata is that enemy nin — and just the thought of her approach through those doors, slowly slipping in, overcoming the room — one foot after the other — step by step — coming closer and closer until she looms over me with those moonish eyes that could see my everything if they so chose — haunts me, and I cannot relax at all. I skip over paragraphs of the paper, skim headliners, then barely focus on the small numbers in the Sudoku puzzle. I spin the pen through my fingers as my head drifts, refocuses, drifts again.

The door opens. It’s 4:25. The small stream of calming chakra slides up the side of my neck, and I feel my muscles spiral. My arm pushes my body out of the chair as Hinata enters the room. I watch her smile, look away; she turns that complimenting shade of red and looks at me again.

“Hello,” she says in a small voice.

I drop the paper onto the table, meet her by the door, and listen for any noise in the hallway as she fumbles with her coat. There’s a shake to her hands that’s unmistakable: she’s nervous. And some part of me likes that — likes that she’s nervous around me. Maybe some part of my sinister past self still resides with me. I’ve grown much since my return to Konoha, now working as an Advisor of the Hokage, of all things — and yet, in some areas, I’m still that raging child. That sadistic side still surfaces every now and then. How annoying. Here I am, frustrated with how the elders snivel around me one day, then I’m admiring the peaking buzz of nerves in Hinata’s hands the next. But, I suppose, her reaction isn’t necessarily because of fear.

Perhaps that is why I can stomach it.

More than stomach it, really. Hunger for it. Grin at the mere sight of it. My mangekyo ignites with a pop of chakra, and an instinct I have never had before floods through me as I lean in, grab the back of her skull, and prompt her head in just the right angle for me to lay my mouth on hers. Unlike last time, nothing about this feels foreign. I feel as if I have done this a million times. Her mouth is fresh with the aftertaste of mint. Had she been expecting this? I brush my teeth slightly against her lip, and she shivers, inches closers, opens wide for my exploration. Her palms find my chest, beaconing me backwards. I slide my right foot back, then my left, determined to never let her mouth leave mine as we slowly come deeper into The Archive. There’s a storm of electricity at the top of my spine, ready to bolt down, then shock its way through my entire person. My mouth feels tender. The tips of my fingers feel sensitive. Even if my mangekyo has tricked my instincts into believing I have done this many, many times, my body is not fooled, and I can only enjoy every movement, every touch, every noise from Hinata that lights up something completely new in me.

I’m enchanted by her teeth. I want to taste them. I’m so wound into her that I don’t notice my leg hitting something until, suddenly, I’m falling back. Our mouths separate with a gasp. My arm rockets back, trying to catch my body. It finds the back of a chair — my chair — and I realize with a dazed mind that I’ve fallen into my seat. My dōjutsu spins in surprise, which reflects in Hinata’s wide gaze. Rosy mouth partly open, as if to ask if I’m fine — but she stops herself. She looks at me from her standing position, and that concern melts away, replaced with something warmer. Shrugging her coat off completely, leaving it as a pile on the carpet, she positions herself on top of me, legs between my thighs and the sides of the chair. She rests herself on my lap, and her face is red, and I feel my own warm up, the backs of my ears irritated with fire.

Sharingan bursting again, pushing a new memory into my working brain, I feel my mouth open wide just as Hinata bends down, kissing me again. She hums with approval. Her voice tastes sweet. I feel it in my canines, and something pristine shudders through me. One of her hands grabs the back of the chair, the other on my shoulder. I trace my fingers over her knuckles, then follow the line of her arm, the slope of her shoulder — down her side and around to the small of her back, motioning her closer, until she’s freshly against me. Her body heat is driving me crazy. So is her mouth. Her breaths are pushing through her nose, and I can feel every time she struggles for breath. We part, swallow hot air, then go back in. She pushes so deep into me that I feel the back of my neck strain against the chair’s back.

My hand fists into her blouse, and she pulls away, panting. Her mouth is wet. My lungs feel small, unable to keep up with my need for oxygen. Everything feels so tight that I can hardly stand it.

“Sa— suke-san ,” she manages in a shallow pant. Her eyes slowly open. I think I can see a trace of blue chakra on the thin outskirts of her irises. “Where — uhm — how did you — get so — hm, good?”

Good. A few drops of pride stir into the whirlwind of pleasure that’s coursing in my chest.

“What do you mean?” I feign confusion — mostly because, right now, I’m not in the right headspace to explain anything clearly.

She shifts on top of me. “I mean —” Then, Hinata swallows a breath, and continues, “not that you were bad — I mean — did you practice, somehow?”

Her lips look swollen. I did that. I want to make them more swollen, more red. Why are we talking? What does it matter how I got better? I lift my hand to her neck again, aiming to bring her back down, but then we both hear the heavy noise of someone going down the staircase on the other side of the wall behind me. Hinata jerks up, hurries back, catches the edge of the oval table, and starts to lose her balance. I rush forward to grab her shoulder, thrusting her back into an upright position before she topples over. The door opens, and she turns away from it with a striking red heating up her face. My annoyance rises into my skin without much hindrance. I snap my head to the side, sneering at the newcomer. A plain-faced woman freezes up when I set my glare on her. She recognizes me. That much is obvious. A garble of words rattle in her mouth before she leaves just as quickly as she had come.

Slowly, I release Hinata’s shoulder.

She turns more away from the door, hands combing nervously through her hair. “ Oh gosh,” she whispers, “she saw us. How embarrassing!”

So what if she did? That woman has no place in our lives. My mouth twists when I say, “She wouldn’t know either way.”

“She knows.” There’s assuredness in her voice. Hinata peeks at me, twitches, and adds, “Your face, Sasuke-san.”

I don’t know what she means until Hinata pulls out a small hand mirror from the pocket of her coat on the floor, opening it for me and turning it my way. My reflection is a mess: hair in all whichways, dōjutsus spinning, mouth as wet and swollen as Hinata’s. There’s a slight sheet of sweat that makes the skin on my neck glow, and the tips of my ears look bitten with frostbite, standing out clearly from my hair. Yes, it’s rather obvious from my face alone. So obvious that I’m almost ashamed — but more so, I’m rather more concerned with finding a way to lock that damn door by next Friday.

______

And then, we separate into our sections, her with her history books, me with my files — and neither of us read, but we pretend to be distracted by the words on the page and not by the sensitive skin of our lips. This is a game, I suppose, that many new couples play. If the movies I watched last night reflect reality, that is. My index scrapes along the corner of the file I use for my pretending, and I wonder about that some. New couple. Is that a category we can be put in? Sakura has explained it to me a few times — the complexity of love lives. Talking is different from dating. Seeing each other is different from getting serious. Difficult for no good reason. Weren’t there days where you're either single, dating, or married? A shinobi’s lifespan is far too fucking short to put all these in-betweens into the mix.

“How annoying,” I mutter.

Hinata practically leaps out of her chair. “Y-Yes?”

Our eyes meet in the middle. She’s flustered. Her fingers pinch into the hardcover of her textbook.

“What.”

“You — Did you just say something just now?”

“Nothing important,” I say. “Just to myself.”

She nods dully, a bit out-of-it. “ Ohhh.”

Then she turns back to her book, and I frown at the silence. This isn’t going to work. Whatever games other people play — I won’t have my part in it.

“Hinata,” I say.

She jumps again, more flustered. “Oh! Yes?”

“You like me, don’t you?”

Fidgeting, she turns her eyes away from me. “Well, yes.”

“How much?” I ask.

“H-How much?” Hinata repeats, and when I give no clarifying addition, she fidgets some more. “You mean — um, should I put it on a scale somehow? From one to ten? Or perhaps in a percentage?”

“I mean,” I cut in, “enough to date me?”

She thrums in shock, and even I’m slightly surprised. It should be of no surprise I’ve not been in any sort of relationship before — and no of the in-between talking or seeing each other nonsense either. I had only learned her name a few weeks ago. I dragged her into a hospital room to save my teammate, which possibly traumatized her. I hid my identity from her, and when she confessed, I was frigid as the winter surrounding us. Clearly, I’m in no good state to date anyone. I know this. I knew this even to the nanosecond prior to kissing her. But I still did it. And I still want to. Date her, that is.

Slowly, Hinata puts her book down, forgetting all about that pretending game. “Well.” She thinks a while more. “Well, I’d like to, yes. On one condition.”

Part of me recognizes that, a decade ago, if I ever had the gall to ask a girl out, they wouldn’t even think to set conditions. It’s not my ego realizing this; it’s that sarcastic part that loves the bitter taste of irony.

“Continue,” I press.

She lifts her right wrist to her mouth, hiding it with the cream sleeve of her blouse.

“How did you get so good at it?” She doesn’t have to clarify. I know what she’s talking about. “Please be honest.”

I settle a little further into my chair. Does she think I practiced with other women? In a way, perhaps that would be a less shameful reality. How many men study romance movies to learn how to kiss, after all?

“My sharingan. It allows me to copy movements. I watched —” I nearly choke when my heart rockets into my throat, “ demonstrations.”

Hinata nods in that dull, mindless manner again. Her hands clamp between her knees, and she studies me some, then asks, quietly, “Is that something you, um, enjoy?”

“What do you mean?”

“W-Watching,” she squeaks out.

I’m sneering before I can stop myself, a ball of disgust rolling around in my stomach. “Next time, I’ll simply let you struggle with my shortcomings.”

With a start, I flip up my files, the manila folder snapping in place. Hinata giggles, and some of the tension has faded from the atmosphere. Good. At least I haven’t screwed up yet.

______

She’s putting her coat on slowly. There’s an elegance there. The tug of sleeves along the expanse of her arms, the way the collar fits around her neck — I’m staring with no intention of stopping. The books are put away. I have my paper under my arm, ready to recycle it once we’re on the main floor. It’s that time of day where we prepare to part. I still intend to walk her to the Inuzuka’s, but we’ll have to take separate paths, and I will have to be careful to submerge my presence. So Hinata readies herself slowly, talking about her secret training and meditation. She’s gotten better at control and flow, she tells me. It doesn’t feel clogged when she tries to push chakra into her fingers now.

When we’re ready, I open The Archive door for her. She smiles in thanks, walks past me, and as we walk the hallway together, she says, “I want to help with the wall.”

The wall has been an issue in the back of my head: still a headache to deal with, but not a top priority. Thankfully (or, maybe, unthankfully should be the right term used) Naruto’s attack has swallowed most of the Advisors’ attention, so I have not been bugged or poked about my efforts in convincing the Hyuuga as I had promised to. Her bringing it up now, however, leaves me pausing with my left foot on the first step leading up to the main floor of the library.

“Is that right?”

She nods enthusiastically, bangs bouncing about her face. “I want to help. Do you think they’ll be alright with me?”

The construction team is not what’s my main concern here. “And your family?”

Her smile is small, but impish. It jolts my pulse, and I suddenly want to kiss her again.

“It will be our secret.”

She keeps going up the stairs. Good thing, too. I was battling with the intense wish to have her against the wall. I match paces with her, and we lag to the side, where I recycle the local paper before we make our way to the glass doors. Mid-February is still unforgiving to late sunlight, so the sky is still pitch black outside, occasionally spotted with stars seen beyond the light pollution of the village. Once we’re out these doors, we’ll have to take our different paths. Hinata slows us down, prolonging the inevitable. I huff, a little amused, and guide her out.

“Follow me,” I say,

We take an isolated street with no one around to see us. It leads in the opposite direction of the Inuzuka’s, but that’s not why I’ve brought us here. I only need a little seclusion, and with ease, I use a transformation jutsu on myself. Smoke hisses from my skin, wrapping around me as the shell of a mask encases my entire person. It weighs down on me. I have not done this in a long time, and the jutsu feels strange on my person. When the smoke and steam clears, Hinata blinks, a little frightened and a little surprised.

“Sasuke-san?” she wonders.

“Yeah.” The voice that comes out of me is higher pitched and scratches the back of my throat. “It’s just a disguise. A jutsu.”

She studies me a little more, then says in a light voice, “You’re that boy I helped. Your teammate, right?”

Fuck. Right. She saved Naruto. And now I’ve possibly retraumatized her.

“Sorry,” I mutter. It sounds weird in that kiddish voice. Of all the people to pick.

“It’s okay.” Then, to add merit to her words, she grins. “It’s amazing. I-I knew, um, that shinobi could disguise themselves — but seeing it for the first time is . . . .”

Isn’t she a bit too wonderstruck? Once I have the chance to really start training her, she’ll be able to do a lot more than juvenile jutsus like this. Snorting, I tug at her sleeve, and we leave the street together, side-by-side. 

“If you’re sure about the wall,” I continue, “then I’ll mention it to the Hokage.” She’s got that goggled look to her again, as if the concept of meeting the Hokage is such a rare incident. How easy to awe. It’s not good for my ego. She makes the simplest of tasks feel like I’ve just invented a new, life-altering jutsu. “Lord Kakashi will be pleased.”

We pass down a street of vendors. It’s crowded and loud. People see my disguise and smile and wave; sometimes, they go as far as to call out Naruto’s name. A strange reaction. One that my regular face would not persuade from people. I force myself to grin in the same manner he would, thinking, again, that the next time I do this, I’ll have to choose someone a little more subtle.

Hinata leans in a bit when she speaks. Her sleeve touches mine.

“He won’t mind? After the attack . . . and with my clan being watched . . . .”

So they noticed the extra eyes. I’m not surprised. They have those all-seeing byakugan, after all. “He does not distrust the Hyuuga. He is merely being precautious. I believe the Hokage will be grateful for your assistance now that we have a possible threat on the horizon.”

I feel her relax next to me. My head tilts back some, and I sigh into the sky, feeling weightless myself.

We make it out of the busy parts of Konoha. When the Inuzukas’ collection of homes come into view, I stop, and she stops with me. I’d be a fool to go any further. Disguise or not, an Inuzuka’s nose is sharp. Hinata must understand, for she turns to me, smiling and pink.

“Thank you for walking with me.”

“I’ll see you next Friday.”

And then, because I realize suddenly that another week will have to pass before we see each other again, I lean down with the intent to kiss her. Her hand finds my mouth before I can, and I open my eyes, curious. No? Am I doing something wrong? She hadn’t seemed to care in The Archive? Is it because we’re in public? But, of course, there’s no one around now. Perhaps she really is bothered by my ‘research’.

“Sorry.” She looks away, steps back, and rubs her hands together nervously. “I mean — with that face — it’s hard to . . . .”

My first reaction is a cold, shocking offense.

Then I remember I’m disguised. Disguised as the very man she had to save from death on a hospital operating table.

Fuck, I groan. Why am I so stupid today?

“Go ahead,” I murmur. “Go before you freeze.”

And because, somehow, Hinata knows me in times when I don’t even know myself, she laughs and pats my shoulder in a comforting manner before leaving for the Inuzuka’s. My walk home is long and cold, and I take it as a punishment for my lack of common sense.

Next time, I tell myself, don’t be an idiot.

Chapter Text

Shizune comes to my office twenty-five minutes earlier than usual on Monday. There’s urgency in her step that my eye does not miss. I flip the folder before me shut and sit straight in my chair, providing her all of my attention. I wonder, first, if there has been another attack, or if Naruto has suddenly remembered a new piece of information; then, quietly in the back of my mind, I wonder if the Hyuuga have done anything suspicious under watch.

“Hokage-sama requires your presence,” she says, just enough inside to be considered within my office, but still clinging to the door. “We have a Hyuuga visitor.”

It is the Hyuuga. Of course it is them. Lately, it feels like I have accumulated another sense specifically for that clan — or, perhaps, for one Hyuuga in particular. Either way, I’ve become annoyingly sensitive to them. Pushing away from my desk, I follow her into the hallway, allowing her to lead me further back into Hokage Tower. I can feel the lulling, slumbering chakra of Shizune close by, as well as Kakashi’s slightly restless chakra in the distance. Pushing past them, I search until I feel a third chakra: water. A creek. Small but growing.

I know exactly who has come. It gives me enough time to flatten my expression as we enter Kakashi’s office, where Hinata stands there with her back to us, a little stiff in her posture.  Her hair is tied into a tight ponytail, and she’s wearing . . . many things I have not seen her wear before. A dark blazer and slacks, but also heavy boots and dusty gloves hanging from her belt. Semi-professional while also looking like she’s about to work on some construction site. I keep my staring short and casual as Shizune and I join her in front of Kakashi’s crowded desk.

“Hinata-san,” he starts, “has just been informing me that you have chosen her to be the Hyuuga to help with the wall.”

My chin stays even. “After deducing her control over her dōjutsu, I’ve considered her beneficial to the wall’s rebuilding project.”

Kakashi threads his fingers together, analyzing Hinata. I do not blame him. With her strange outfit, it is hard to see the traces of her years of work in the mines of Iwa. Right now, all she looks like is small and fragile, with a round, girlish face. Not exactly what one would stereotypically see working construction on a major wall.

“From our previous discussions,” Kakashi says, “I had assumed you would gather a team of Hyuuga.”

Hinata shifts, and I admit, “Despite my efforts, Hinata . . . san is the only one available.”

“I-I’ve worked in the mines for eight years,” she says, a little awkwardly. Her gaze keeps fumbling about the place. She does not know where to look. Not at Kakashi, and definitely not at me. “Stone and, um, such are my specialty, so please do not worry about my, um, working capabilities.”

Kakashi, a bit surprised, sits back and scratches at his head. Shizune smiles down at Hinata kindly.

“We will be happy to have your aid, Hinata-san.”

“Oh! Um, I’m happy to help Konoha in any way I can.”

Kakashi fingers through a few post-its that Shizune has the habit of writing for him, finds what he needs, and clears his throat. “Head of Construction shall be here soon. If you’d . . . like anything, Sasuke here can show you the way to the vending—”

A burst of air leaps from her mouth as she sags back, waving her hands wildly in the air. “O-Oh! Please don’t bother — I mean, I saw where everything was when I passed. Thank you — oh!” She bows low, suddenly, bangs hanging off her face and ponytail slipping down her shoulder. Then, she stands straight again, unwrinkles her blazer with shaky hands, and continues, “Thank you. I’ll be right back. Th-Thank you.”

Hinata makes her way to the door. I catch her flush and the way her eyes dip. It’s as if she’s scared that one moment with me will reveal everything. Perhaps that is her impression of shinobi — that they can figure everything out in one, simple glance. Maybe some could, but definitely not this Hokage, who looks even more confused than before, fingering the lip of his mask as Hinata hurries away.

I do not think she will look at me, but at the last moment, she angles her head back to find my eye across the office. It’s an acknowledging I see you and a simmering I already miss you and a timid I can’t wait for Friday to come, all packaged into one sparing glance that lasts no more than half a second before the door shuts and Hinata is gone. That’s all it takes for my balance to fail and my body to fall at a slight angle against Kakashi’s desk. I catch myself before anyone notices. I can already taste her on my tongue.

“Jumpy thing,” Kakashi muses. “You really decided on her, Sasuke?”

Shizune stares at me, and I nod.

“That’s right,” I manage.

“You frighten her.” Under his mouth, the Hokage smiles at me, a twinge of amusement caught in the corner of his eye. My old sensei is at that point where he finds people who fear me comical. He was, after all, the poor fool who had to train the likes of me and Naruto when we were freshly out of the Academy. I doubt anyone would garner much fear of me if they had to witness my many blunders as a rookie nin — no matter how irritating such a thought is. “What could you have done to that poor Hyuuga to scare her so?”

I purse my mouth, choosing the best course is to say nothing.

“I find it likely,” Shizune pops in, “that rather than fear, the poor thing has a crush.”

That gets Kakashi cackling. I sneer at Shizune, who simply stares back, searching for any sign of affection that I may be hiding for Hinata. As if I’ll reveal anything. I keep my expression void, though the sharp warning in my eye may be telling enough, so I scoff and steer my attention to the side. Numbness is slowly easing from my joints.

“Am I permitted to leave?”

Kakashi relaxes into his seat, flushed with a kind of joy I have not seen on his face in a while.

“Looks like you’re back at it again,” he teases. “Even as Konoha’s traitor, the girls can’t leave you alone.”

_____

The word spreads, because word always spreads. When it’s about Konoha’s government, word spreads like wildfire; when it’s about that pesky Uchiha survivor who now has a say in all of the policies of the village he had not-so-long-ago betrayed, word spreads like a nasty wildfire during a four-month drought. It reaches Naruto, because of course it does — because Kakashi cannot keep anything from his old students. And after Naruto, it reaches everyone else within the sphere — because Naruto has prided himself to be a future Hokage since his youth, so of course he has connections with the government beyond myself and Kakashi. He drinks tea with the Head of Intelligence every other Sunday, and he went to the violin recital of Research Team Chief’s granddaughter back in December. With his big mouth, I’m surprised it took more than a day for all of Konoha’s government to know about the supposed crush Hyuuga Hinata has on Uchiha Sasuke.

. . . Well, it’s not necessarily supposed , but that isn’t something anyone has the privy to know.

Come Tuesday, after a rather heated meeting with Finance (for a field that is supposedly proficient with money, they complain about not having enough of it far too much) , the Head takes a moment to lag behind. All his foldless papers and files were ordered nicely into his leather briefcase, and just as he stands from my desk, he offers a hand out to me, which I slowly take. Strange man, I think. He and I have never seen eye-to-eye, nor will we ever, so it is not common practice for us to show respect to one another outside of what society deems necessary.

“I heard you managed to get the Hyuuga’s help with the wall.” His cold fingers don’t grip my hand at all. They sort of just press against me, weak and soft. It takes a good amount of control for me to not crush him. “I have heard she is beautiful. No wonder you picked her.”

He slides his hand out of mine before I can squeeze hard enough to pop his bones out of place.

On Wednesday, all the Advisors meet with the Head of Construction to understand the new procedure with the wall now that a Hyuuga is on the team. He goes over the reconstructing process and a way of avoiding weak spots in the foundation, which, of course, will require more resources and more money. Another meeting with Finance, I realize, jotting it down in my mind as I listen to the drawl of everything.

Hinata is not presenting with Construction. I try not to feel too disappointed with that.

But, then again, it may be a good thing, for once the meeting is over, the common man and a few other Advisors he’s close with find me. They congratulate me, again, on getting a Hyuuga to agree to help with the wall. They know well how much a hassle the new clan has been. They have dealt with it, themselves, a handful of times.

“But perhaps,” the common man muses, “it was not so hard for you.”

I meet his eye, unafraid to challenge him. “What do you mean?”

“You know what he means,” another Advisor says, the aged lines around his mouth curling with his smile. “The girl has a crush on our Uchiha Sasuke-san. Did you charm her into agreeing?”

In the corner of my eye, I see the Head of Construction lag behind. He’s as curious as the Advisors, but not nearly brave enough to ask me about it. How annoying.

“With my history,” I say dully, “do you think I'm the kind to coax naive girls into a contract with false charm?”

The Advisors hum and quiet, but the common man chuckles to himself and slowly shakes his head.

“Who said anything about a naive girl, boy?”

Thursday, Head of Recon situates himself in my doorway. We do not have any sort of meeting planned. In fact, I’m just about to leave for my lunch break. Sakura is waiting for me at a pasta bar close to the hospital, where she will no doubt bug me about the gossip of some girl from Iwa having a crush on me. ‘A girl?’ she will ask in that high-pitched, accusatory tone of hers that I know all-too-well. ‘A girl, Sasuke — and you haven’t told me yet!?’ And I will have to spend half my lunch explaining no, I did not flirt with some Hyuuga to trick her into working on the wall and, no, I haven’t had some breakdown that would turn me down such a path, and she should know that, so can’t she please just drop it?

I am in the middle of cussing out that idiot Naruto for spreading such nonsense in my head when Recon taps the doorway with the back of his hand. His face is stern and cool, unlike the teasing and curious expressions that have been tagging me since Monday.

“A word,” he announces.

I pull out from my desk and start working on my coat. “Make it quick.”

“What are your thoughts on the Hyuuga?”

Fucking hell. I should have guessed. I haven’t gotten a break from it for three days straight.

“I’m not sleeping with her,” I grit out, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s not what I mean.” He comes a little more inside, the light of the hallway glowing against his frame, his silhouette. That stern expression remains, and I wonder if this has anything to do with the watch on the Hyuuga. Usually, the Spying Division would be put on such a duty — or ANBU, if the mission were a high enough ranking. But because of the Hyuuga being within the walls of Konoha, Recon was put on the job of watching them for any signs of terrorism or criminal activity. If his team has discovered something, would he truly come to me first? Before even the Hokage? “Do you think they are guilty of Naruto’s attack?”

I consider him, then say, “If I did, I would not allow one of their members to work on our walls.”

He thinks, and his gaze lowers. I wonder if that’s doubt I see in his gaze, or regret. Either way, I suddenly understand the works of his mind. He thinks I’m taken with Hinata, that my interest in her has blinded me from any warning signs of her clan. He has come to confirm that, but now he is not sure.

A part of me is annoyed, but the more clear-headed side of me cannot blame him for his suspicions.

Because I am interested in her.

I would not let that cloud my judgement, but how would others understand that? How could they know?

“I commend you for doing your job,” I say, forcing him to find my eye once more, “but do not let it doubt my decisions. Until proof shows that it was the Hyuuga behind Naruto’s attack, I will give them a chance to clear their name.”

He nods, bows shallowly, and leaves with thuds in his steps.

I slowly blow out my frustration, lock my office door behind me, and try to cool my head along my trek to Sakura.

_____

“Where’s the rendezvous?”

Naruto comes to me Friday afternoon. He looks such a way that I get the impression that he’s just finished with a mission — D-Rank, if I had to guess. Wind-blown, with hair sticking sideways and twigs clinging to the cuffs of his sweats. I suppose Kakashi has finally let him back into shinobi life, and knowing Naruto, he’s glad to have even the smallest of missions after this drought of his. The sunniness of his glee gets on my nerves the moment he steps inside my office. I roll my chair back a bit, lean away, and rub the back of my neck with a tired sigh.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

He drags a chair and sits before my desk. “That girl — Hinata-chan. Where do you meet her?”

Why are we talking about Hinata? Haven’t we talked about her enough this entire week? Don’t gossips get tired after a while? After so much he said, she said about one topic, don’t they get a little bored of it by some point? My annoyance rises to another level, and I frown. “Who said anything about meeting her?”

Naruto gives me a look. Sometimes, I’m surprised that this idiot can have his own bouts of wisdom and perceptiveness. There is a lot he looks over — most of which pertaining to himself — but when it comes to others, Naruto cares, and Naruto notices. Which is nice, I guess, but also irritating when he starts to notice things I don’t want him to notice. 

“Dude. I’m not stupid.” He takes hold of the mug Hinata gifted me for Christmas, twisting it in his hands to look at every inch of it. What is he expecting to find? A secret code? I’d rather him put it down and stop smearing his dirty hands all over it, but if I make any sudden attempt to snatch it from him, wouldn’t that be too obvious? “Every Friday, you disappear off the face of the planet for a few hours. Obviously, you’re meeting her somewhere.”

“I’ve been doing that long before Hinata.” Patience snapping, I take the mug from him. “To get away from annoying people like you.”

Usually, saying something like that would spiral him into a rant; he’d call me a lousy bastard, and I’d call him an idiot, and we’d argue for a few minutes before he tires himself, or until I force him out of my office, and maybe we’ll get lunch after that, but the topic would be dropped. I’m sort of hoping for that response, but he doesn’t take the bait. He just stares at me expectantly.

Eventually, I relent. “Why are you asking?”

He scratches at his whiskers, grinning. “I’m curious, y’know. I mean, she’s the only Hyuuga working on the wall, and she saved my life, and she’s the only girl who you’ve ever been interested in. Like — you came to my house to watch —”

“We’re not talking about that.”

“So I just want to meet her.”

My first thought is to keep this idiot as far away from her as possible; but then a second, more hesitant, thought arises from the depths of my mind. My relationship with Hinata, while new, is something I have to strictly keep a secret. The Hyuuga cannot know, and nor can my work — not while she’s working on the wall, or else everything will be twisted into a tale that I’m manipulating her into working with Konoha. Because that’s how it always works with me. There is nothing good about Uchiha Sasuke in the general eye of Konoha. If I’m with someone, it would have to be for devious reasons; I don’t have enough of a heart for anything else.

But wouldn’t it be . . . nice if someone trusted knew, I wonder. If it’s acknowledged by others, doesn’t that make it all the more real? Not that we need anyone’s acknowledgement or support. But relationships aren’t something I have a good history of keeping. It’s very possible, in the near future, I’ll make a mess of everything like I always do.

If Naruto knew —

If Hinata and Naruto met, and became acquaintances — or friends, knowing how Naruto works — it’s possible that things could be easier. If I mess up, he’ll say I’m a sad bastard, and that I don’t always do the right thing, but I have a good heart and I’m trying. He’ll be able to talk through the flaws of Uchiha Sasuke because he’s known me for over a decade, and Hinata might need that. Someone who understands me more than I know myself.

“Later,” I breathe out, putting the mug back in its spot.

A whine curls against Naruto’s mouth. “You say that, and then it’s going to be another month.”

“If you keep talking, I won’t pay for lunch.”

“HUH — wait! Alright! No talking! I’m, like, totally quiet!”

_____

When Hinata enters the Archive at her usual time, I’m already standing. I don’t remember if I ever sat while I waited that twenty-five minute interlude between my arrival and hers. Perhaps I paced the bookshelves, or perhaps I worked on my Sudoku standing with the paper against the wall. I might have searched the lines of books for something a little different than my usual Konoha Shinobi readings. Somehow, it’s a blur, a mist that flickers away once the door opens and Hinata’s eager smile catches my eye.

“Hello.”

I meet her by the door. There was a time where I did not bother to stand from my chair whenever she would enter. I’d continue on with my reading and puzzles, and she’d collect her books and sit quietly for hours, and that was simply our late Friday afternoons. Now, somehow, it feels impossible to keep still when she’s around.

But I have good reason to meet her at the door today. With a quick hand seal and my palm against the wood, the door disappears.

Hinata’s gasp is slight as she turns, awed.

“It’s gone!”

“Not really,” I say. “It’s genjutsu. It’s still there, just hidden.”

I watch her hand trace the wall, feeling for the invisible frame and the invisible handle. Then, in a spur of curiosity, her chakra rises to her eyes, and her byakugan flares to life, crystalizing into her iris.

“Oh!” Her head tips back, surprised. “I can see it.”

So the byakugan also lets her see through genjutsu. Admittedly, this is an amature jutsu that an Academy student can break with little hassle, but it makes me wonder how advanced her dōjutsu is.

But that’s a wonder for another day.

I guide her until her back is against the hidden door, and I feel stripped by her byakugan staring right into me. The exposure feels enticing, and I do not feel the need to pull away like I usually would. Instead, I kiss her, remembering the taste of her mouth that I have been thinking about since the last time I’ve kissed her — an entire week’s worth of hunger. She vibrates, and she circles her hands around the back of my neck to pull me in, and I think she’s smiling, or perhaps I’m just delusional. It’s easy to lose my mind with her. I press my forearm into the wall to keep my balance, bending over to suck on her lip, then bite, then soothe it with my own. Hinata searches for my tongue, but pulls away before she can do anything with it, breathing hard. I like the sight of her small body lifting and falling because I make her breathless. It’s an image that I record into my mind even without my sharingan activated.

“You — ah,” she sucks in the air between us, lungs begging for it. I listen to her pant. My heart is racing and aching. “You hid the door because . . . I mean — oh gosh.”

Smart thing. My thumb feels the warmth of her bottom lip. “That’s right.”

Her byakugan glistens, expands, then fades away until it’s the normal off-white of her eyes. Her face is that pretty red, and her hands slip from my neck to hold my face.

“Oh, Sasuke-san,” she murmurs, “I’m mad for you.”

Fuck. That went straight to my stomach. Damn if she needs to breathe, because I’m back on her mouth, taking whatever she’ll give me. Hinata’s laugh is faint and airy, and then it rumbles into a groan when my tongue teases her lip. I kiss her quickly, turning my head in different angles until I find the one that makes her legs weak.

There are other things I should be doing. Training her. Evaluating her chakra control. Asking her about the wall and if anyone has been bugging her and if her clan is suspicious at all.

But, for now, this is fine.

_____

Then I feel it.

The annoyingly-familiar chakra of an idiot.

When I separate from her, Hinata’s eyes instantly open, confused and a little annoyed. She’s not exactly ready for this to end, and truthfully, nor am I; but the only reason Naruto would ever come to a library would be to bother me. Somehow, he’s figured out where my sanctuary is. He doesn’t even try to hide his chakra, like he wants me to know he’s coming.

Annoying bastard.

“Someone’s coming,” I tell her.

HInata blinks as I step away. She turns her head to the side and sees that the door is still hidden.

“But —”

“That won’t work on him.” I hear him plodding down the stairs. Seriously, the timing couldn’t be worse. “Come here.”

Gently, I pull her behind the shelves, fixing her askew bangs as she adjusts her top and tries to rub the heat out of her face. I leave her there to fix up herself, returning to the open sitting area of the Archive just as Naruto breaks the jutsu and pushes his shoulder into the door, opening it. Ungracefully, he hobbles inside, hands over his eyes and a cheeky grin stretching his mouth.

“Found ya, bastard!” he yells. Some of the books shiver from the ruckus. “Heh. Weren’t expectin’ me, were you? Don’t worry, I made sure to cover my eyes so I don’t see anything inappropriate —”

“Drop your hands, dumbass,” I snap.

He cackles, slowly dropping his hands, though his eyes are still squeezed shut. “Sorry. I was just tired of waiting to meet —” When his eyes open, they survey The Archive, then blink owlishly when he sees only me. “Eh? HInata-chan?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“Don’t you come here to, like, get frisky with her and stuff?”

“Watch your mouth.” Still, the back of my neck burns. She definitely heard that. Why can’t this bastard keep his mouth shut? “How the hell did you find me?”

He gives the room another look over, even squinting at the shelves Hinata is currently hiding behind, before he huffs and falls into the chair I usually sit in. “It was a damn puzzle, that’s for sure! I asked Sakura, and she said Kakashi would know, but he didn’t know either. So then I asked Shizune, and she says she sometimes sees you walk down the big market street on Fridays, so I went to go ask all the shop owners — and then —”

“Did it not occur to you,” I mutter, “that maybe there’s a reason why it was so hard to find me?”

Naruto ignores that, wrinkling his nose at the wall of books to his right.

“I should have known you came to some boring-ass place. Only a sad bastard like you would read old books on his time off. I don’t know what that girl sees in you.”

Has he not felt her presence yet? Or, perhaps, I’m way too aware of it. Either way, he’s talking like she’s not here, listening to every annoying thing he says.

Rubbing an ache at the base of my neck, I say, “She’s here, so stop being a moron.”

“Eh? What?” His head snaps around, and he calls, “Hinata-chan? You’re here?”

We both hear a quiet stir from the shelves, then a murmuring. “U-Um. Hello.”

I turn, but she hasn’t come out from the shelves yet. Still, Naruto’s grin is massive and shit-eating, and I wish I could smack it off of him.

“You are here.” He gives me a look, getting a good idea of all the things we could have been doing that would require Hinata to hide. This time, I lean over and smack the back of his head, which makes him wince and bark out a laugh at the same time. “Finally. Y’know, I’ve been wanting to meet you since you saved me, but this bastard has been hogging you all to himself. Can you believe that?”

I’m going to kill him.

It’s a promise. Once Hinata leaves for the Inuzuka, I’ll kill him here. She’ll be long gone, unaware of the murder that had just taken place in The Archive, so she won’t have to go through the process of saving him again.

“She’s a bit shy,” Naruto muses, then looks at me. “You’re into that?”

“Should I cut your tongue out?”

“Hey! I’m just ask— ah, Hinata-chan?”

I turn again and spot her hair first. Then, slowly, she peeks out from behind the shelf, still red-faced and a little frazzled. Her mouth is a little swollen, which makes my chest squeeze with a bit of pride. I relax the tension from my joints and rotate my hand, motioning for her to come forward. She does so, a little crowded into herself. Her palms rub together before she forces them at her side, and then she smiles awkwardly at me.

“U-Um—”

And then she stops.

We both do.

A blast of chakra revolves around Naruto, burning the air around him, snapping and growling like the demon inside of him. Maybe it is. I turn, and his face is anguished, and he coils his neck away from Hinata, staring daggers into the carpet. He sneers, then gasps, then vibrates in pain.

“Shit,” he mutters. “ Fuck — calm down. C-Calm —”

He’s breathing hard. Hyperventilating. My senses expand, and I search for danger. Did someone slip inside? Is something coming through the vents? A trap? But I find nothing; it’s only the three of us here. I lean over, pressing my hand to his neck, checking his pulse. It’s thundering.

“Hinata.” When I look up, her byakugan is already activated. “Come here and —”

“Don’t!” Naruto shoves himself into the wall. His skull nearly cracks into it. “Just — give me a second. Kurama is — shit.”

The demon inside of him is stirred. Does it feel threatened? I do not know much about the creature aside from its protectiveness over Naruto’s life. But there is nothing here that would put anyone in danger —

I look at Hinata again. Her wide, nervous byakugan taking in the waves of chakra before her. Does she see the kyuubi?

Those eyes, which share the very same color and dōjutsu of those who attacked and nearly killed Naruto.

Slowly, I stand, and I back up until I have her behind me.

“Wh-What is happening?” she whispers, jumping when Naruto roars with the kyuubi’s voice. “What is that?”

There’s not enough time, enough clarity, for me to explain about Naruto, his seal, the demon within him. All I can do is keep her behind me as I watch Naruto’s form contort in pain and anger. My dōjutsu spits to life, and I say, lowly, “Stay behind me.”

Chapter Text

Naruto’s jaw is snapping. There’s a craze to his eyes that I have not seen in a long time, and when it narrows onto Hinata, I try to fit all of her behind me. He’s fighting a transformation, I think. Something about the kyuubi is fighting for control of his body, and it seems to be winning. It growls, then hisses in pain as Naruto fights, bows his head, whispers to the demon.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he begs.

Hinata’s hands hold the back of my coat, stiff with fear. She may not know about demons, about vessels. What must she think of him? Possessed, or crazed? I shift my foot back and motion for her to follow my lead while staying behind me. My gaze stays on Naruto. If he lunges, I’ll be ready.

“Damn you!” When his voice springs from his peeled mouth, it does not sound like Naruto. It sounds demonic, and it howls in a monstrous way through The Archive. The walls shake. Books fly off shelves. Hinata yelps and ducks in-between my shoulders. “Come to finish us off, have you? Like hell I’ll let you!”

His grimace is full of fangs when he arches like a beast, glaring at us.

“Show yourself!” he yells. “Damn it — face me!”

“Behind the shelf,” I tell Hinata, but she won’t move. She is stuck to me — so close that I could hurt her if I try to block an attack. Naruto’s chakra is smoking the air, hot and spiced and suffocating. It stings my eyes, but I do not look away from him as he claws into the back of a chair, lurching, shouldering back for an attack. “Hinata. Move.”

Her panicked, short breathing leaves my neck. She manages half-a-step back when Naruto collapses to the ground, grimacing, curling as if in pain.

“Come on, come on.” His voice is hoarse, but normal. “Listen to me, bastard.”

The fangs slowly dull, and his chakra sinks back into his core, agitated and snapping but no longer feasting on the air. His glistening with sweat and a marred line across his face — and finally, after a minute, his eyes open, and they’re a startled, familiar blue.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, “I’m so . . . .”

His voice dies when he spies Hinata’s petrified face. He looks at his own hands like they’re not his, like he stole them from someone else but can’t remember who they once belonged to. This is what he hates the most, I know: people afraid of him. They hated him as a child, knowing him only as a vessel of the kyuubi. He is used to the hate, but fear is what he can’t stand. And I should tell Hinata that this isn’t normal, that Naruto has complete control over the kyuubi — but does he? If he did, then what just happened?

Naruto lifts. He looks unused to his own body. Without a word and only a chance of a guilty, forced smile, he leaves.

_____

I walk Hinata home from the library. It’s not an option. When I tell her, she gives little protest, only a tired glance at my profile. The adrenaline is slowly draining from her system, leaving her cold and shaken and exhausted. Shinobi know how to deal with this process. We survive on instinct and adrenaline, so we use meditation and chakra control to help ease the side-effects of a withdrawn adrenaline rush. But for civilians who do not have to use the reactions and chemicals in their body for daily survival, the aftermath is unpleasant and, from what I can tell, shocking. I settle her in a narrow alleyway and press her to a wall, my body blocking any chill that might try to nip at her.

“Through your nose, out your mouth,” I tell her. “Breathe.” I pull her arms straight up from both sides as she follows my instructions slowly. “Push your chakra from one hand to the other.”

“Sasuke,san, I —”

“Try, Hinata. It will help.”

So she does so under the careful watch of my rinnegan. Her chakra slips through her fingers, across her arm, and it clusters for a moment in her chest before she manages to push it into her other arm. Her breaths turn steady, and a little color returns to her face. If we had more time, I’d keep her there and let her repeat the process a few more times; but it’s late, and keeping her out any longer will bring more suspicion to the already suspicious Hyuuga.

“Alright?” I ask.

She nods and drops her arms. I make sure to disguise myself in the shadows of the alleyway before we step out. I dare not change into Naruto, so I swallow a thick clog of disgust and cloak myself into that Inuzuka’s disguise. Hinata, still, looks startled when she stares upon me, but her silence remains as we merge into the main street. There’s a heavy roof of clouds taking over the dark sky, allowing no stars or moonlight to peek through. Our only light comes from streetlamps and stores. I try to stay with the crowd, but there’s something overwhelming about every body I come across. The noise irks me, and the permeating heat of a populated street sponges to my skin, my senses. I sneer, take her wrist, and guide both of us into lesser-crowded nooks and pathways.

Even still, I feel claustrophobic in my own skin. It could be the disguise, but most likely, it is what happened with Naruto. Of all the reactions, I expected that one the least. When I think about it, of course, it makes sense; that demon stored inside of him stops at nothing to protect itself and its vessel. If someone with the same eyes as his attacker came close, it’s expected for it to fight, to attempt to dispel any threat.

Which means Naruto really had seen a byakugan. Which means it really was a Hyuuga who attacked him.

There is no room for doubt, but still, I feel my brain scrambling, clawing for it. There is no logic for the Hyuuga to attack. I know this, and I am sure the Hyuuga know it, as well. That, perhaps, is why the Head allowed Hinata to help Naruto. He knew Konoha would be suspicious, so he let his own daughter save the life of one of our most powerful shinobi. A symbol. A message. We are on Konoha’s side.

But it was the Hyuuga that nearly killed Naruto. The demon inside of him all but solidified that.

Why? My frustration is gathering between my ears, buzzing and hot. What would they gain from such an attack?

“Hinata —”

“Kiba-kun, I know — wait.” Her wide eyes stare at me, realizing her mistake. She fidgets, then looks away. “Sasuke-san, I mean. S-Sorry. I’m still trying to wrap my head — rather, I know you must think my clan is behind Naruto-san’s attack, but I must insist that we’re innocent. My father would never allow such a thing, nor would anyone else.”

I try to soak in her words. Truly, I do. But something sticks to me and stabs into my already irritated nerves.

Kiba-kun. Familiar. Friendly. Nothing at all like the nervous, distant Sasuke-san that she calls me.

Nervous, nervous. Why is it nervous? Why do I make her nervous? Why does that bastard dog ease her when her own boyfriend can’t even convince her to drop the honorific? Is it Konoha? Has she been here long enough that the gossip and whispers are starting to get to her? Before I know it, she might start avoiding me, cowering if I so much as look at her.

I suck in a sharp, frozen breath of air, and I let it curl into my throat.

That’s not true. She wouldn’t do that. It’s just the irritation. I’ve sunken low into a bad mood, and I’m allowing it to cloud my judgment and bite at anything that rubs me the wrong way.

“I believe you,” I tell her, though I can’t be sure if I do. “Is there any other clan with eyes like the byakugan?”

Her gaze dropping tells me all I need to know.

“No.” We take a turn, and all of the sudden, she freezes. I huddle close in case of any attack, looking around, searching for any enemy that would provoke such a reaction from her. I see nothing, but I keep my arm around her, pushing her into my side. I feel her shiver and droop, and then she whispers, “No one has the byakugan . . . unless . . . they stole it from one of us.”

Eye transfer, she means. I see it reflect in her face. She’s thinking about the Hyuuga they left behind in Iwa: the old and sick that couldn’t handle the long trip to Konoha. Something could have happened to them, and a group of rogue shinobi may wield the power of the byakugan.

But is that truly possible? Not just anyone can merely handle a dōjutsu that is not a part of their ancestry. Sometimes, their own chakra rejects the dōjutsu; other times, it nearly kills them. In some cases, it could take years to decades for the dōjutsu to adapt into the new body of the wielder. The only reason I managed to master the mangekyo that bloomed from Itachi’s eye so quickly is because I am an Uchiha, and Uchihas have the sharingan in their coding, in their bloodstream. The Hyuuga had only come to Konoha a little more than a year ago. Even if the rogue nin were powerful, it would take much longer for them to be able to control the byakugan.

“Has your clan heard from the Hyuuga that stayed behind?” I ask.

“No. Maybe. I’m not sure.” Hinata’s own frustration blinks across her narrow eyes. I pat her shoulder to motion for her to move, so she starts again, and I keep pace with her. “All I know is that Father has been more strict with our byakugan usage. We aren’t allowed to use it at the complex. Not during training. He won’t tell me why. It’s like he’s —”

Hiding something, I finish in my head. The Head is definitely hiding something, and if it’s bad enough to hide from his own daughter, then it may have possible ties to the attack.

“It’s becoming harder to meditate without being caught,” she continues softly, the wind almost taking her voice away. “If he learned I was working on the wall, I — I do not know how he would react.”

We arrive at the outskirts of Konoha. A few blocks down lies the Hyuuga estate, and I know this is as far as I can take her. I want to ask if she’s considering quitting the wall and, possibly, training with me in the Archive, but I have no time. I watch her hesitate, leave my side, then meet my eye over her shoulder as she slowly walks away. Her wave is small and timid, and then she is gone.

And I have a lot to think about.

_____

I request a moment with the Hokage on Monday. It’s early in the day. Most of the Advisors are just arriving to their offices, making small talk and coffee by the kitchenette. Shizune is there with them, and when I come to see if Kakashi has a moment for me, she stirs sugar and cream in one mug, keeps the other black, and nods. With a mug balanced in each hand, she leads me to the Hokage’s office, pushes the door with her hip, and allows me entrance.

Kakashi looks tired, but not exhausted. I do not remember him ever looking disheveled when he was my sensei. He awoke early, fresh and prepared; if he were ever late, which was often back then, it was not due to waking late and not being able to drag himself out of bed. But since the sudden change from shinobi to Hokage, an intense but mostly stationary position, I would suspect that early bird sensei of mine has taken a step back. Now, when Shizune offers the coffee full of sugar and cream, he takes it gratefully.

“Don’t you think,” he says, with mild humor, in my direction, “that it’s a bit too early to start any trouble, Sasuke?”

I huff. “I remember a time where you would force us to wake at dawn. Somehow, Naruto still had the energy to cause mischief.”

“Those were the days.” He stirs a spoon through his coffee and lets the steam filter through the air. “Tell me why you’ve come, Sasuke. Your expression is bleak and scaring poor Shizune.”

At her name, Shizune gulps down her coffee to give the Hokage a look, much to his amusement. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps that dastardly sensei is still in this old man, playing tricks with every ease in the world.

I come closer to his desk, and I say, “I’d like to send a message to Iwagakure formally requesting information on the Hyuuga.”

The mood cools. Kakashi leans back in his seat, pondering. “Has something happened?”

“Naruto and — the Hyuuga crossed paths yesterday.” Hinata, I want to say. My tongue begs to shape the sounds of her name, but I refrain. “The kyuubi reacted violently and nearly attacked her.”

Both Kakashi and Shizune flinch and share a look. As I expected. Naruto said nothing to them. Shame, probably, or fear that he might be prevented from more advanced missions if the Hokage starts to think he’s losing control over his demon. Some of me hates the idea that I’m the one to reveal this, but it must be done. Konoha has been wary of the Hyuuga up to this point; with this recent event, we will have to turn more cautious.

“I suppose that’s the next course of action,” Shizune muses.

Kakashi gives me permission to send the request, though he does not look pleased about it. And I can understand why. This all but ruins the shaky but appropriate relationship Konoha had with the Hyuuga; if Iwa sends any sort of proof that could highlight the clan as Naruto’s attackers, we have every right to imprison and interrogate every single one of them. But if we are wrong and they are innocent, then even our suspicions could shatter any reason the Hyuuga have come to stay in Konoha. They could leave.

Hinata could leave.

Would I rather Hinata leave or be locked away? Neither. I want neither to happen to her.

But I’m an Advisor, and the safety and security of this damned village goes before any of my own needs. So I leave the office, and I go to my dark and gloomy one, and I sit and stare at the trinkets gifted to me for Christmas, and then I pull out a scroll and I begin to write.

_____

Shino comes on Thursday. Not to see me. He’s come to discuss class sizes and resources that the Academy will need for the next academic year with a different Advisor, which is all but fine with me. Since last Friday, I have felt on the precipice of my nerves. When the Police Chief comes with his reports, I force him to keep them short and quick, sure that I’ll snap at the mere whine of his voice if he yaps on for too long. Finance, deserved or not, has been at the receiving end of my rage since the beginning of this week, and it seems the Head of the department has grown enough cells in his brain to wait a few days before he continues his squabbling. Shino is not like Finance or the Police Chief. He doesn’t talk for the sake of talking, and any meetings I’ve previously shared with him have stayed professional and influential. But I am in no mood for anything beyond tedious paperwork today.

When a knock comes to my door, I hold back a sneer. I give them entrance, and Shino opens the door but barely takes a step into my office.

“I’ve just finished my meeting,” he says smoothly. There’s a collection of files under his right arm. “Do you want to grab tea with me?”

An odd request, if I must be honest. Shino and I are friendly, and we share mutual respect for one another, which is hard to come by in this job. But we do not have the kind of relationship to stop by each other’s offices with invites to tea or coffee or lunch. Naruto usually bothers me with such requests (which, for obvious reasons, he’s been avoiding this week), and if we have the same hour of lunch off, Sakura and I meet every now and then. But I do not go out with anyone else, and I doubt Shino is much different from me.

He must read the dash of confusion on my face, for he explains. “I’ve heard you are stressed. I thought tea would help.”

Stressed. Has there ever been a minute since I’ve taken this heaven-forsaken job that I haven’t been stressed or frustrated or on the brink of going mad? Why now? What’s so different now that a mutual has come to take me for tea?

“Who told you?” I ask, but despite myself, I’m standing and pulling on my overcoat. The office, admittedly, has become stuffed. Fresh air might be good for me, and my legs could use some movement.

Shino stands by in the hallway as I lock my office door.

“Naruto,” he says, which is strange. I have not seen Naruto since Friday. How would he know? “Why? Well . . . I’m not sure. He dashed away before I could ask him.”

I push my key into my front pocket, taking this in. I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised. Naruto has random bouts of attentiveness. Sometimes, when we’re out training or eating together, he gets a feeling about Sakura or Kakashi or Sai, and he makes it a point to visit them the next day. It would be strange to anyone who did not know the idiot how oblivious yet in tune he can be; sadly, I’ve been around him for too much, so I know how he works. If it’s not the guilt of his almost-attack, then something in the air must tell him I’m not in the best of moods.

What really surprises me is that, rather than Naruto, it is Aburame Shino who has come.

We barely make it to the main, front doors of Hokage Tower when a beetle lands on Shino’s shoulder. Apparently, the Aburame have bred all kinds of insects that can withstand the cold of a Konoha winter. They have them stationed all over Konoha, bringing some sense of security to the village. Shino carefully brings a hand to the beetle, letting it crawl over his knuckles as he brings it close to his face.

“It’s from the wall,” he warns me, and I prepare myself for any disastrous news. Another collapse. Injured workers. Perhaps even enemy nin were spotted close to our borders. I think about Hinata for a split second, envisioning her on the wall, unaware of the danger she could possibly be in. I hold my nerves still and keep my face flat as Shino listens to the low chirps and clicks of the beetle’s message. His face tightens, brows drawing behind his specks. Not good news. Damn it. “It’s Hinata-san. She’s been injured.”

Every organ in my body suddenly feels heavy. A collapse, I could handle. An attack, I might even welcome.

This is . . . .

“How?” My voice is low, almost quiet. I can hardly recognize it. “Is it serious?”

The beetle continues to relay its message, and Shino’s posture does not relax. Fuck. It’s bad, isn’t it? Did she get crushed by falling stone? Did she fall and split her head open? Or — worse — there was an attack, and she happened to be their first target. What if it’s the same enemy who attacked Naruto — those mysterious shinobi who may or may not be Hyuuga — and what if they did what they did to Naruto? Attacked the minor points around her heart, effectively stopping it. In five minutes, she’ll be dead.

Dead? I think hazily. I won’t let her die.

“Minor,” Shino’s voice cuts through the storm of my thoughts, and I focus back on him. “A minor fall. She may have fractured a bone in her ankle, but she seems fine otherwise.”

Fine is not the word I would use. Konoha has been defenseless for far too long. Eventually, the enemy will get the hint and attack — and when that’s happening, how will she run on a broken ankle? How will she escape and keep herself safe?

My fingers dig into my palms. Shino lets the beetle buzz away, and then he regards me. I don’t know how I’m presenting myself. For all I know, I could be steaming right now. My skin feels boiled, and I don’t know what to do with myself.

“I shall go see her,” he says, after a while. “And you?”

He’s inviting me. Is it because I am the one who put her on the wall, or is he suspicious of something more? Does he believe the rumors going around? If I had any clearness to my mind, I would be able to tell; but I can’t keep anything straight. I feel like I’m burning from the inside. Is this how Hinata felt when I was pushing my chakra into her so she had enough to save Naruto? How did she stand it? I can hardly keep myself on my feet.

“Go ahead,” I manage, and I turn and go back to my office.

And I stay there. Cloaked in the dark, I fall back in my seat, and I stare at the door and will myself to calm fire in my chest.

_____

I wait for as long as I can stand it — and then more than that. I wait until it feels like cactus is growing out of my fingernails, until scorpion tails start stabbing into my lungs. I wait until a volcano is about to erupt, and then I carefully put on my overcoat, tighten the belt around my stomach until I feel pain from the squeeze, and leave my office. My breath froths before my face as I trudge through the chill. Somehow, the hospital feels further away than it ever has.

The cold does nothing to the volcano. That’s the only way I can describe it. Or, perhaps, a geyser: the kind that erupts boiling, toxic liquid from the core of the earth. Sakura likes the kinds of books that depict similes and metaphors like that: heroes as valiant and good as angels, villains with anger as hot as fire. Why are the villains the only ones that are ever angry? It doesn’t matter — and it doesn’t matter that the only way I can come to terms with the turmoil in my body is through cliches and lines from Sakura’s books. I suppose that going to a hospital with this kind of turmoil, this boiling agitation, is no good. I try to chant calm down, calm down, Sasuke, and when that doesn’t work, I try to assure myself — She’s not dead. A minor fracture. She’ll be healed in no more than a week or two.

Not dead. Not dead.

It’s just the week I’ve had. Monotonous paperwork. Aggravating meetings. Restless sleep, and whenever I close my eyes for a fraction of a second, I envision the red of Naruto’s eyes as he focused on the still, terrorized form of Hinata. I’ve been pent up, and that is why there is all this ruckus winding up between my organs. That’s it.

My foot finds the first step of the shallow staircase that leads up to the revolving doors of the hospital. I freeze, and I slowly pull that leg back and settle it behind me.

I shouldn’t go in there. Not when I look like this. I find a nook where no one can spy me, and I disguise myself into that dog Inuzuka once more. My own chakra encapsulates my body, tightening around me, and I feel claustrophobic. I feel busy and crowded — and, fuck, I can hardly stand it. The hard nails of my disguised hand grip into the concrete wall, and I sneer as a physical, painful weight bears into me. The edges of my vision blur in the same manner they would when I would overwork my dōjutsu. All blood, for a second, seems to leave my head, and I feel myself sway and almost topple over. That hand on the wall is the only thing that steadies me, and I take a minute to breathe, to just . . . exist and find myself in time and place.

I don’t understand. Is it really just the stress?

I have not felt like this for a long time. Not since that day. A few nights after the massacre. They had just released me from the hospital, and when I followed the familiar path to my estate, it was like every nerve, every muscle, every cell and nucleus and ion in my body was fighting me. At one point, I had lost consciousness in the middle of a street; at one point, I was walking, and then, all of the sudden, an elder was holding a cool, wet rag to my face in the comfort of her shop. That memory has long since left me — until now. Until this very moment, where I feel as though I could wake from this fragmented state at any moment to the kind, sympathetic hand of an elder who passed by and found the last Uchiha unconscious in the street.

My lungs are tired from all my breathing. My legs feel stable enough, and I will myself to enter.

Just make sure, I tell myself. See her, then leave. That is all.

That’s all, Sasuke.

“Kiba-san? Hello?” The woman behind the front desk gives me a peculiar look. It’s a chore to look at her. The lights are too bright, and my eyes feel heavy. Still, to make it believable, I smile, and her mouth tips in an awkward smile back. “You’re back so soon. Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten Hyuuga-san’s number.”

My laugh is less convincing and more of a wheeze. “You got me.”

“202. Sound familiar? It should.” She leans over and playfully slaps my shoulder. My stomach rolls, and the fleshy walls of my esophagus constrict. “Now, if you come see me again, I’ll make you work for it, here me?”

I can’t manage a word. I just raise my hand in a mock salute, and I let my legs take me down a long, familiar hallway. Naruto had been put in 204. When I’d visit him with food and whatever else he sent me to fetch him, I would pass 202, and I never suspected that it would one day hold Hinata inside. No one can really suspect something like that, I suppose.

But if I had known. Hell, if I had known —

I never would have put her on that wall. I would hardly let her leave The Archive. She could stay there all week, couldn’t she? I could stop by before and after work. I’d spend the weekends with her. I’d hide her away in some secret room we would construct together, and when Konoha is ultimately attacked and I ultimately have to save its ass, I won’t have to worry about her.

I ought to do that. Once she’s out of the hospital, I’ll —

“Kiba? You’re back?”

When I slide the door of Room 202 open, I see Hinata first. Her dark hair, usually left down and braided along her back, is tied loosely at the top of her head, leaving the back of her neck free to rest against the perched pillow behind her. She sits idly in her bed, hands on her lap. There’s a book on the small table next to her, waiting for her attention. I search her legs and find one bandaged from the middle of her calf to the sole of her foot, pins keeping the bandages in place. I will myself to feel some relief at the sight. No blood, no obvious injury. She’s okay, and yet . . . .

“Oi. Kiba!” Finally, I tear my eyes away from her and regard the other guest in the room: Yamanaka Ino. Since when have they been acquainted? Not to mention that Hinata and Shino also seem to have met at some point. Has she already met half of Konoha? Ino clashes with the dull walls of the room. I have always thought she has been too flashy. Noticeable, which she seems to enjoy. So strikingly offset from any background. The blue of her eyes strikes like a match against my skin, and the ruckus vibrates through my ribs. “Everything good?”

I manage a nod as I turn back to Hinata. “I was just making sure you were alright . . .”

How does he call her again? Do I even want to hear his stupid voice say her name?

Ino, situated in a metal seat at the foot of Hinata’s bed, uncrosses and recrosses her legs as she stares at me.

“Make sure she’s alright?” she asks. “What — you think something happened since you left, like, forty minutes ago?”

Her suspicions are clear, but Hinata’s easy smile reveals no qualms with the supposed reappearance of this Inuzuka. A shot of frustration mixes in with every other emotion flopping around in my head.

“Thanks for thinking about me, Kiba-kun.” I can’t hide the flinch when that dog’s name breezes past her mouth so seamlessly. Ino cocks her head, but Hinata, again, doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, her eyes flash past me, and she shifts and rubs her hands together and bows her chin. Suddenly, she looks at everything but me, and she asks, softly, “Um, did you, perhaps, see S-Sasuke-san while you were out there?”

My mouth is stuck together, like my saliva has congealed and glued my mouth shut. How would she react if I told her that poor idiot was leaning against the hospital wall outside, on the brink of unconsciousness? Better yet, how would she react if she found out that Uchiha is already here, standing right before her?

Ino snorts. “Oh gosh, Hinata-chan. If you ask things like that, you’ll keep the gossip aflame.”

“Gossip?” Hinata blinks her confusion.

“You don’t know?” Ino passes me a look, then says, “I mean — well, they say that he’s got a thing for you.”

I beg, in my head, that she won’t make it obvious. Wishful thinking, because Hinata displays everything so openly, so freely. It would be sickening if it weren’t so refreshing, so intoxicating. Her lashes flutter, and her face turns red instantly. She reels back, her injured leg kicking out involuntarily, and her wince sinks dread into my gut.

“Wh-What? Oh — what? Who says that?”

“Hinata-chan — oh gosh.” Ino stands, looming over Hinata’s propped, bandaged leg, helpless in trying to keep it still. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Obviously, it’s just a rumor. It can’t be real, can it?”

And just like that, Hinata goes still, and her brows furrow in thought.

“Obviously?” she repeats. “What do you mean?”

Ino is looking at me again, and I wish she'd stop. I wish I had left the second I got here, the second I saw Hinata wouldn’t die right on the spot.

“I mean —”

“She means,” Inuzuka’s voice bursts from my mouth, startling me, “that a bastard like him wouldn’t have any interest in someone like you.”

Ino’s ‘Kiba, you dumbass’ doesn’t hit me. Or maybe it does, but I don’t feel it.

I watch the pain crackle across Hinata’s face. She holds up her arms and observes herself, and I pray for her to activate her byakugan and to look at me and notice I’m disguised, and I pray that she’ll understand what I meant. That it’s a lie. That, out of anyone in Konoha, she’s the only one that I’d want to be good enough for me. That, in reality, the question should be whether or not I’m good enough for her, if I should even be here, if I ever had the chance to not mess all of this up since the moment I kissed her — since the moment I learned her name — since the moment we met.

The byakugan remains untouched, and she asks, “Is there something wrong with me?”

I can see the fear manifest. I remember how she loathed the idea of Uchiha Sasuke judging her for her eyes. How she wanted to meet him so desperately, but worried that he’d react to her dōjutsu like Iwa had. I thought I had put those fears to the side, but all I’ve done is replant them in her head. They’re sprouting in the corners of her eyes, and that dizziness, that fading visions, hits me again.

“That’s not what I meant,” I say. That’s all I can say.

_____

When I hear the light, uneven creaks of someone hobbling down the library staircase, I imagine, for a moment, that it’s Hinata. It’s close to the time she’d normally come to The Archive. If yesterday hadn’t happened — if she hadn’t gotten injured and I hadn’t seen the sick pale of her face in that colorless hospital room — right leg propped and bandaged — nerves jumping and wincing if she so much as shifts incorrectly — I could believe she’s the one I hear coming down to the basement. But she’s injured, and if the Hyuuga hadn’t dragged her back to their complex, then she’d be stuck at the hospital. Resting, maybe. Hopefully resting and not replaying in her head what I had said to her.

I almost went to her this morning. Visiting hours start at eight, but I was committed to the idea of sneaking in so we could be granted a few minutes of privacy. It would have been good, I decided, to talk, to explain myself. That Inuzuka, though a mutt he is, wasn’t the one who said those things to her. It was me, and I didn’t mean it. And how could she let me stand there and say those things? How could she ever believe she wasn’t worth more than some foolish Uchiha? If I were her and that bastard Inuzuka implied there was something wrong with me, I would have ripped off that cast and thrown it at his head. And, maybe, she would laugh . . . I hoped. Maybe she’d understand that I went the wrong angle when I was trying to deflect Ino’s suspicions. Because of work, because of Naruto, because of the attack, because of her sudden injury and keeping everything a secret and the Hyuuga always feeling like one shadow away . . . because everything feels discombobulated and wrong, and I can’t get the right footing, the right walls up.

I almost went, but I didn’t.

Thinking about the hospital sends me in that dizzying, unbalanced state. I hate how weak I feel, but I can’t deny it. I didn’t want to be on the brink of a collapse while trying to explain myself — or, worse, sneak in only to find the room empty. So I went to work, I skipped lunch, I submerged into paperwork and meetings until the backs of my eyes started to feel numb. I avoided Shizune and Kakashi because one look at me would have sent them on high alert, and I don’t think I could stand being sent home with nothing but phantoms and my thoughts, the scene from yesterday haunting me like the presence of my late brother.

When I reached The Archive, I searched. I searched for any iota of what had happened last Friday. A fiber from the jacket Naruto had been wearing. A scent of his peppery chakra. Blood stains or shoeprints. Anything. But it’s a clean state, holding nothing from that evening. I had hoped that would give me some relief, but it didn’t, and I can’t focus once I get my files and I settle into my normal chair.

Which is why I hear the creaking. It sounds like a grandma struggling down the stairs. It can’t be Hinata. She’s at the hospital, or with the Hyuuga . . .

But what if? The thought barely hits my mind by the time I’m standing. Leaving my files and paper to lay on the table, I push through the door, and I am only mildly bewildered by the sight of Hyuuga Hinata slowly and awkwardly hopping down the staircase, her right leg at a weird angle as she tried to balance herself on the railing. I’m next to her in an instant, before she can even recognize me, and I stabilize her right side and let her hold onto my shoulder. She fumbles, grabs me tight, and then we carefully descend to the floor.

“What do you think you’re doing?” My voice comes out vicious. Not the right tone, I suppose, to use with an injured person — but if that injured person is putting herself in situations where she can get more injured, then perhaps the luxury of a kind, comforting tone is put momentarily on hold.

Hinata finds her balance, loosens her grip on me, and tries to limp into The Archive. “I just — I just —”

“Stop moving.” I hold her hip to keep her still. “You’re not going in. You should be in the hospital.”

Something about her face slacks into terror. Is she frightened I will carry her all the way back? Because I will. Damn her if she doesn’t think I will.

“Wait. Sasuke-san, wait.” Both of her hands are now on my shoulders, keeping a safe distance between us. She’s not pushing me away; not exactly. But I doubt she’ll let me get any closer. “One second — I just — I wanted to talk. Please. Just for a moment, a-and then I’ll go.” I’ll go, as if I don’t want her here. She must know that, if she weren’t injured, I might not ever let her leave The Archive again. She must know that. “Just a few minutes. Please.”

I feel myself giving in before I can try to solidify my resolve. A long string of annoyance bundles into my chest as I open the door and maneuver her inside. My focus follows the slumping of her right leg. I can feel my muscles squeezing, tightening, ready to lunge if she loses balance. Hinata reaches the back of the closest seat without fall, and she manages to circle it and sit. I do not miss the pained line wedged between her brows. She’s hurting. That string of annoyance knots around my heart.

I sit across from her. The cacophony is starting up again. That havoc. It’s like cicadas, I think; so loud I can’t think, can’t breathe.

It must show on my face, for Hinata’s expression turns downwards in concern. “Are you —”

“Say what you wanted to say.”

She swallows her question, tenses, then says, “This morning, I spoke with Kiba-kun.” My lungs inflate to the point of pain, air rushing in without having any way of getting out. She knows. She knows that the Inuzuka she spoke to yesterday wasn’t the real one. “He was confused when I asked him about . . . well, um, and then I remembered that you could disguise yourself —”

“All shinobi can do it,” I interrupt again, already tired. Can’t she just get to the point?

Hinata pauses. “So it wasn’t you?”

“It was,” I say.

“Then why does it matter if all shinobi —” Hinata forces herself to stop. I think I see her teeth sink into her words, decapitating them before they can leave her mouth. “Okay. N-Nevermind. Um, what I’m trying to say is that I understand why you didn’t . . . reveal who you were with Ino-san there. And I understand that we have to keep everything a secret — especially from my clan. But when you said you wouldn’t be interested in someone like me —”

I lean forward in my seat. “Did you believe that?”

Her mouth is still open with the hanging end of her question that I have, once again, cut off. Slowly, her lips purse. “Well . . . .”

It’s not exactly a confirmation of what I already know, but it’s not a denial either. Something dull thuds behind my temples, so I rub my hand against my forehead, sneering. There are parts of me that are locking up, shadowing away. I know this mechanic of myself, my subconscious, well. A defense mechanism — sometimes from the world, but mostly from myself, my own irritation and cruelty. It was common when I was a boy with no understanding of self-control and the rage inside of my body. When I would push my team away — when I was especially cruel to Sakura or ignored all of Naruto’s attempts at befriending me or abandoned all hope Kakashi had for me — I’d lock whatever guilt I held for my own, brutal actions away. It was a way to not feel, to not let myself soften from shame.

Since I’ve returned to Konoha and matured, I’ve learned to keep my cruelty at bay and my guilt free from the prison I once locked it within. I rarely feel shame, but when I do, I try to let it slip over me, and I try to let it keep me human.

But the locks are coming into place, and I have no way of reversing it.

“You believed it,” I mock. “You shouldn’t have, but you did. I thought I told you to have more fucking confidence Hinata.”

She freezes up in a way that reminds me of Sakura when we were genin. How she admired me, and how I always threw that unyielding admiration straight into her face. It’s the words of the people you love, after all, that hurt the most. My father taught me that lesson from a young age, and here I am repeating the cycle.

“I’m trying,” she whispers. “But I can’t just fix myself overnight. In Iwa, they —”

“Are you in Iwa now?” I nod over to the history section where, just last Friday, she huddled herself, too shy to meet Naruto head-on. On that same Friday, I nearly shoved her back behind that very shelf to protect her from whatever attack the kyuubi could launch at her. The memory sends a bolt of panic through me. “Have you been reading Iwa history all this time? Tell me, Hinata: if I brought out a map of this village, would it depict Iwa of Konoha? What do you think?”

I watch a cold shell pass over her face, and she frowns. “Don’t speak to me like that. I’m not a child —”

“If you’re not a child,” I sneer, “then stop acting like one.” I lift, and something about my height must intimidate or infuriate her, for she tries to stand, as well. I grab the underside of her right arm and lead her to the door. “Go back to the hospital. It was stupid for you to leave. What if you hurt yourself more?”

“The reason I came,” she yelps, “is partially because you said —”

“Something that you shouldn’t have believed. Something that was so obviously not true.”

“H-How was I supposed to know?” Her voice is shaking, but I can tell it’s not from her nervous stutter, and it’s not from fear. “I’m not a mind-reader!”

Of course she’s not. But she’s observant, and she’s smart enough to put two and two together and know why I said what I had said: to dispel the rumors, to get Ino off our case — and — for fuck’s sake — how could she believe she’s not good enough for me? What have I done that would make her think that?

“Sasuke-san,” Hinata says, after a while. Her face is red, but in a mean, upset sort of way. Not flushed with that pretty blush. Her hands are shaking now, and the extra weight she puts on her left leg to relieve her right of any pain makes her look lopsided and smaller than she already is. Almost pathetic, which is irritating beyond belief. I don’t want to look at her and pathetic be the first thing that comes to my mind. “What you said hurt me. I  . . . I know why you said it, but it still hurt.”

“You want me to apologize,” I drone. It’s not a question.

Hinata lifts her chin and stares into me. I feel so hollowed out by her gaze that another sting of panic sinks into my sides.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “that you seem to have no self-respect.”

Her flush dies on her face, along with any spark of irritation in her gaze. She hollows out with me, any life or fight cut out of her by my words; now, The Archive is nothing but two, hollow people staring at each other. I wish it was just one, just me. I wish she’d leave. I wish she’d go back to the hospital where her nurse is desperately searching the halls for her, panicked. I wish she’d go back to her bed without fight and stay there and rest and, somehow, she’ll heal overnight. By morning, she can walk fine on both feet; run, if she has to. Where would she run to? Who would she chase?

“No wonder everyone hates you,” she whispers.

She wouldn’t run to me, I’m sure.

If anything, she might try, with all her might, to stay away from me.

_____

She does what I’ve been wanting her to do all this time: she leaves.

And like the cruel man I am, I hang by the door and watch her crawl slowly up the staircase. Her ankle is giving her hell. I can tell, and I can tell her pride won’t let her show an iota of that pain on her face. Both her arms loop around the rail, and she hauls herself, steadies, and aims for the next step. Halfway up, her right foot smacks into the wall, and I nearly snap. I nearly lose my mind. I take a heavy step forward, and every bone in my body wants me to grab her, shake some sense into her, and carry her up the rest of the way — and maybe to the hospital, if she can stand it.

‘No wonder everyone hates you.’

But I stop before the second, and I watch her safely reach the top of the staircase.

With a slumping leg, she leaves, and she doesn’t look back.

_____

A wall has never enraged me so much before. When I was a genin, a lot of small things would trigger me into states of vexation that would last for hours, sometimes entire days: long hallways, working fathers, the smell of sweat and decay and crying children that remind me too much of myself. Never walls; not until now. I come home with harnessed frustration that loosens from its knots the moment I slide open the main door. I had meant to go to the dojo, but the sight of an empty Uchiha estate punches me in the gut, and I sneer and jam my fist into the wall to my immediate right. I don’t feel the pain of knuckles on hard wood, nor do I feel any relief, any satisfaction.

In the dojo, I bring out my swords, and I practice swing and thrusts and turns and jabs. Sweat runs down my back, sticking between my bandages and what is left of my left arm. I train until I’m sore and I can no longer stand the sensation of the fiber against my slick skin and I’m on the brink of fainting because, shit, I haven’t eaten anything today and I’m just a husk of a man. I feel sore and light-headed and like shit, so as I make my way to the shower, I see that damned wall again, and I slam my fist into it once more before I burn myself under the spray of hot water.

I force myself to eat. I am not hungry, so I shove food into my mouth despite the protests of my stomach. From the kitchen, that stupid, good-for-nothing wall leers at me. There is nothing special about it. No pictures, no hangers. Just a blank piece of wood next to the door, shaping the entrance. I realize, then, that homes are meant to have decorated walls. Mother would pretty them up, sometimes hanging dried bouquets and herbs in the kitchen. In my room, she’d showcase drawings I scribbled when I was five and posters of samurai heroes from the movies I liked the most. In her and Father’s room, she had photos of us. That is what a wall should have. Pictures of a family.

The only picture I have sits on my office desk, far away from this estate. My current room is bland. The one I had as a child is abandoned on the other side of the estate. I have not entered it since I have returned.

The wall is mocking. It thinks I will be alone forever, and it’s probably right. A thought like that did not used to terrify me, but now it does, and that terror turns into spitting rage, so I leave my meal and storm over and kick the wall again, again — again! Chakra fills my mouth, begging me to blow fire into the useless, ugly, bastard of a wall. Shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t I just let this whole place burn?

When I stop, I stare at the thing. Walls do not bleed like humans do. They do not bruise, and they do not wheeze in pain. I get no satisfaction from destroying this thing, but I hate it, and when Uchihas hate, they destroy. They always, always destroy.

‘No wonder everyone hates you.’

“Shut up,” I say to nothing, to no one.

I am alone here. 

_____

I feel the chakra before the tiny, hesitant footsteps arrive on my engawa. Frigid like ice water that bites at my senses. The chakra is unstable; it is not nearly the amount a normal shinobi would possess — not even an Academy student, if I had to guess. But it is vicious and wild, snapping and roaring like a storm, like a tsunami crashing into my estate.

Hyuuga Hinata is at my door. She has found the Uchiha complex, and she is here. And based on the state of her chakra, she has not calmed since what happened at The Archive.

Round two? I wonder, annoyed. Why else would she come to me except to continue our argument?

“Sas . . . uke-san? I — um, I know you don’t want to see me right now.” Did she rest at all? Did she even go to the hospital, or did she spend most of the evening walking around just to spite me? Either way, she has not taken my advice again, and I feel that cacophonous impatience rise in me once more. “Just . . . I . . . please help me.”

Her plea is barely audible and so full of desperation that, suddenly, it’s ghostly quiet inside my head. I strain, listening for silence, and quickly cross the room and slide open the door. Like instinct, I examine her in half a second, noting the mess of her hair and the blood soaking her bandaged leg. Are those bruises forming on her neck? Why does the collar of her sweater look torn, threaded? My arm catches around her shoulder, pushing her into my chest as I survey the courtyard, the gate. Something has happened. Someone has attacked her, and they could have followed her here.

I hope they have. My rinnegan coils, and my mangekyo bleeds with indignation. Gods, I hope they are here. They won’t even know how deep into my lair they are until I’m behind them and sicking my sword through their spine.

“Are they here?” I ask.

Hinata’s nose pushes into my shirt as she relies on me for balance. “No. N-No, but they will come here. My family —”

“Your family?” My hand fists into her hair, and she winces. Immediately, I try to relax it, to not hurt her any more.

“Father knows we have met. He — he might not know all of it, but he will come here to look for me. I — Sasuke-san, I just —” Her head lifts, looking into me. She’s scared. She’s fucking terrified, and she’s trembling against me, and the sight of her vacant eyes makes me ill. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

I release her and take her hands, one at a time, and help her let go of my shirt. She grabs the frame of the door instead, and I back away to give her easy entrance. The Hyuuga are on their way. I don’t know how far behind they are, so I have to act fast. I have more bandages and healing ointments in the storage room by the dojo. I’m about to rush there, but I freeze when I hear a collapse. Hinata’s on her knees, smiling awkwardly, so pale that she could be dead.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, then laughs weakly, “I ran all the way here, and I can’t — I don’t think I can walk anymore.”

The bandages can wait. I kneel in front of her, and I assess the best way to carry her. My missing arm would make it difficult to hold her before my torso, and I don’t like the idea of draping her over my shoulder like a sack, like a dead body. Her bangs cling to her lashes, long strands hanging over her face. I brush them to the side, relieved slightly that her skin is still warm beneath my fingers.

“Put your arms around my neck,” I tell her. She does without question, and when I put my right arm under her thighs, she understands. I lift her off the ground as her legs wrap around my hips, and when I stand, I keep my hand on her lower back to stabilize her against my front. Her face is in my shoulder, and she breathes and sags.

I set her on the edge of the sink in the hallway bathroom. Quickly, I grab the extra roll of bandages and ointment from storage, and then I unroll her ankle and feel my pulse turn into the hard knocking of a hammer when I see the damage beneath. She is bleeding, cut up by the pins and any other thing she might have scraped her foot against in her flee. The skin is purple and yellow, hot to the touch and swollen. How she could put any weight on it, much less run on it, is beyond me. I don’t think about it, don’t imagine it. I need to stay calm as I work on healing her as best I can.

“Tell me,” I say.

Hinata swallows and winces when I gently begin to clean her wounds.

“My father knows,” she says, and she tells me everything.

After her injury on the wall, the Hyuuga learned everything. They learned she was sneaking out to train, and they knew she would suppress her chakra at home to not garner their suspicion. How she must have suffered, I think as my thumb slowly traces the curves of her ankle. To suppress her chakra for so long can exhaust the body and the system. She must have fatigued herself, and yet she still found time to train, to help with the wall, to sneak out and see me. She tells me that her father was furious. He had wanted to drag her home, but the hospital insisted she stay another night before she could be released. He left someone to watch her, but she had escaped.

“I was scared they would lock me up,” she says. “Father has done it before. Not to me, but to another clan member. I was scared he would never let me leave again, so I — so I had to see you, to explain.”

Which she never got to do. I pushed her out before she ever had the chance.

I wait for a moment to calm, to level myself, before I start to put ointment onto her ankle.

She tells me that when she returned, her father was there, and he took her to the complex. They were going to seal her. She explains the dynamic of her clan: the main family, the branch family; she tells me that the branch family are sealed at an early age, before their byakugan are developed, to force them into servitude under the main family. Hinata had not been sealed since she is the daughter of the Head, allowing her byakugan to mature and develop without hindrance. If she is sealed at this stage of development, not only could her byakugan be severely damaged, but so could her eyes. She could be blinded, and she may never be able to use her dōjutsu again.

“So I ran,” she says. “I fought them until I was free, and I ran.”

She fought like hell, and she ran like hell, and she asked around until someone pointed her in the direction of the Uchiha estate, and she did not stop until she reached me.

I need to wrap her ankle up, and then I need to take her somewhere. I have to hide her away before the Hyuuga come looking for her. If she stays here, they will find her; those byakugan will let them see through every door and wall and hidden room in this complex. I unwrap the bandages, and when I press the end of it to her ankle, she winces.

“I’m — I’m trying to stay still,” she whispers.

“I’ll be fast,” I say.

Her hands fist into my shoulders as I wrap her ankle, tight enough to secure it in place. Tight enough to hurt, and I watch her leg muscles flex and her upper body twist in agony, but she is quiet, and when I finally look up at her face, her eyes are dry. She is scared, and she is tired, and she is hurt — but she does not cry. My brave Hinata takes on anything that is thrown at her, and I’m amazed.

“Try to stand,” I say.

My hand holds her hip as she slides slowly off the sink, her left landing first, then her right. She cannot put hardly any weight on it, but she manages to stand. I help her to the main room and situate her in a chair, and then I begin to pack extra ointment and bandages into one of the extra mission pouches I own.

“I need to be here when they come,” I explain as I lean over and fasten it around her waist. “If I am not here, they will think I am hiding you away.”

With a simple jutsu, my clone puffs into existence, earning a surprised yelp from Hinata. Her eyes are wide and flashing, unable to register the two of me before her. Cautiously, as if something might hurt her, she touches the hand of my clone. She snaps away when it flexes, then slowly touches it again.

“It’s you?”

“Not really,” I say. “A clone, but it’s real. An extension. When it returns, I will have its memories.”

My clone’s hand slowly circles hers, and she lets it pull her out of her seat. Her confusion is obvious, but we both know I can’t explain everything right now.

“You will go to the Aburame. They live on the outskirts of the village, opposite of the Hyuuga, and your clan does not know of your connection with him.” Nor do I, I realize, but that is (again) something for another time. “I will explain the situation, and they will help you. Alright, Hinata? Tell me you understand.”

It all seems to be piling on her. I see every injury, mental and emotional and physical, gather in her tired, grey eyes. Her clan has betrayed her. She ran away, and now she must hide from them in this strange village. Gone are the days of walking the streets and stopping by cafes and finding time every Friday to go to a secret archive where Uchiha Sasuke is always, always waiting for her. The panic is beginning to settle. It reaches her hands, first, then her neck, her mouth.

“I — I’m so sorry,” she croaks. “Today — earlier — Sasuke, I’m sorry.”

My gut clenches, and my ribs ache. I rest my hand against her warm cheek, and I prompt her face toward me and meet her eye.

“Do not ever apologize about that, Hinata,” I murmur, “and tell me you understand.”

She fidgets, nods, and says, “I understand.”

“You’ll be okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she breathes out, and I can tell she believes me with her whole heart.

I let my clone wrap around her, steadying her. He has both arms, so he can hold her without issue, though I can hardly look at myself carrying her. Don’t go, don’t go echoes in my head, which I ignore. She has to. She can’t be here. We head to the front, step off the engawa, and I open the gate for them. As if sensing my hesitation, the clone stops, and I push out the words that I have been swarming my mouth since I saw her, bleeding and barely standing, at my door.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Hinata’s eyes glimmer, then sink with the knowledge that she can’t stay, can’t soak in the words. For now, my shitty apology will have to make do. The clone sprints off, and I breathe in the cold before I enter, sit, and wait for the Hyuuga to come.

Chapter Text

The screens of the dojo are left open, bringing in the cool of late February onto the tatami. This part of the estate is old, one of the first to be erected all the way back when Konoha was first established. It’s a symbol of the Uchiha that my ancestors prioritized: power and strength. An elegant dojo that stood on the lands of my clan before most of the other buildings came to be. My grandfather was the Head of the clan when electricity came to Konoha, but neither he nor my father updated the dojo with a lighting system, so at night, I rely on candlelight to guide my hand.

This is where the Hyuuga find me. With the Chief of the Police Force leading their way, a grave expression on his face, they come to my gate, and through the steel bars they see the dojo, and they see me inside. I’m posed in a perfect kneel, my back straight and my legs tucked securely beneath me. The handle of my sword rests on my left shoulder with the blade pointed outwards, crossing my torso before balancing on my right knee, giving my hand full access. I run my cloth down the blade leisurely, cleaning the invisible marks from existence. My swords are never dull, never dirty. But the Hyuuga do not know that. All they know is that they are disturbing Uchiha Sasuke on a Friday evening as he cleans one of his most deadly swords.

The Chief rests his hands on one of the bars of my gate, and he calls, “Well then, Uchiha-san, you’d better let us in.”

I look up, careful to keep my expression void despite the snapping anger I feel when I get a look at those damned Hyuuga. It gives me no pleasure at all to let them crowd through my estate, but it’s a necessary sacrifice. Any protest from me could cause unneeded speculation and suspicion, and I know well the Chief has taken all necessary legal precautions to search the premises. One of his pockets, I am sure, holds a warrant. I stand, and I bring the sword with me as I drop from the engawa and meet them on the other side of the gate. Some of the Hyuuga glance nervously at it, but the one face I recognize (the cousin) stares directly at me.

“What is this about?” I ask.

“It seems their heiress has gone missing.”

“That has nothing to do with me,” I drone.

The Chief hesitates, and none of the Hyuuga speak up. Some of me is surprised that the Hyuuga Head is not here with them, perhaps to intimidate or threaten me; he is, after all, one of the only ones who know about my connection with Hinata. Not that I’m here to complain. I doubt I’d have any patience for him, of all people, to ransack my home.

“Hyuuga Hinata,” the Chief says, “has little connections outside of her clan. You understand you are one of them.”

I sigh, and I unlatch the gates and pull them open. The Hyuuga filter in, the younger ones flinching away as I idly twirl my sword along my side. They begin to enter buildings and search the courtyards, some of their byakugan activated. If I had any amount of a good mood, I’d laugh. What was the lie the Head had told me about their eyes? That it pained them to use their dōjutsu? What a joke.

“After this,” I drone, “you ought to search the Inuzuka. I hear she spends far more time with that lot.”

The Chief looks across the expanse of my estate. He does not join the Hyuuga in their search. Smart man. Either he knows I have nothing to do with Hinata, or he knows I wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep her here if I did.

“We already have,” is all he says.

Should it please me that I am not their only suspect? Because it doesn’t. I return to the dojo, hang the sword with the rest of them on the back wall, and breeze through my estate. The Hyuuga are quiet creatures. If I weren’t so blatantly aware of their existence, their annoying presence; if I were a mere citizen and not one of Konoha’s most talented shinobi, then I may struggle to find exactly where they are. I go from room to room, and I roam the engawa, and when I find one of them searching a closet or poking through cabinets, I wonder which one chased after Hinata. Which of them tried to hold her down as her own father tried to seal her? Which grabbed at her injured leg and plunged those pins into her skin?

The cold and my ire are not a good combination, so I enter one of the buildings towards the back of the estate. An old fireplace is huddled into one of the bedrooms. An aunt (or maybe it was a second-aunt) used to have it lit every night during the winter, and she would allow Uchiha children to huddle around and fall asleep on the warm floorboards. There were a handful of times where my mother would pluck me from the floor after I fell asleep to the crack of logs and the warmth of the embers.

I do not come to this room often.

The fireplace is lit now. I had lit it earlier, and the Hyuuga wouldn’t know how rare of a thing that is.

Until one Hyuuga enters. The cousin. The prideful one with lightning eyes that seemed to take note of everything around him. He does not even regard me as he enters the room; he just surveys with his byakugan, lets it die in his eyes, and then peers into the orange flames of the fireplace.

And that’s when I see what he sees. Pins. In my rush to discard all evidence of her coming here, I decided to burn the old, bloody bandages that I had replaced. They had been eaten by the fire easily, but those metal pins remain clustered along ash and log. They glint weakly, and the cousin sees it, and my body tenses. He knows, and soon, the rest of them will know. The Chief will know, and he won’t be happy about it, but he’ll bring me into the station. By Monday, I’ll have to speak with Recon. They won’t get anything from me. I know how they work, and I will deny everything; but it’s a lead the Hyuuga do not need, and I worry they will follow it all the way to the Aburame, to Hinata.

“It’s clear, Neji.” Another Hyuuga hangs by the paper door, half his face gold in the cast of the fire. “We found nothing. You?”

Neji peels his eyes away from the fireplace. “Clear.”

They leave. The Hyuuga conjugate by the gate, speak quietly to Chief, and then leave. Only the Chief bows his head for the inconvenience, and then I am alone. I go to that back building and kill the fire. When the embers die, and take the pins like a mother plucking her slumbering children, and I wrap them in my fist and breathe out my relief.

Some of the Hyuuga, I suppose, will not have to face my wrath once all of this is sorted.

_____

It’s deep into the evening when I am slammed with sensory overload.

My clone has dispersed, and with it comes all the memories of the past hour. While I was here, imagining all the ways I could rip limbs from those sad Hyuuga while trying to air out their stench from my estate, my clone safely delivered Hinata to the Aburame. The memories flash across my eyes like a film, and I falter back into a chair with no choice but to let it play through me. The Aburame are a cautious clan, but they are loyal, and trust is something that lasts long and deep with them. When Hinata arrives, hurt and scared, they do not hesitate to take her in. Shino wraps her in extra quilts to protect her from the winter chill, and then they take her deep into their territory. I can feel her grip on me, the slight shake of her hands as she clings to me. I can feel her warm breath cascade across my neck every time she looks at me, gaging my reaction, wondering if this is all right.

They take her to a bunker. A flashing memory of disdain brushes across me when she and my clone follow Shino down a narrow, steep flight of stairs that go deep into the earth. It is dark down there, with only a single light hanging from the ceiling. It’s barely a bunker, in fact. Most of the walls are packed dirt, with only one supported by stone. The beams that hold up the ceiling are thick as trunks and wooden, and the floor is barren. There is some storage packed into a corner, but it’s mostly unfurnished and empty. The Aburame call it an observatory where, supposedly, they analyze insect (mainly ants, I suspect) that prefer unground spaces.

This is where Hinata will be hiding.

The Aburame are a simple people. They do not crave luxury like most, and their comfort lies with insect and themselves. But they, too, can understand how such a spot, while safe and secure, may not be ideal. They do their best to accommodate, bringing down a futon and a battery-powered lantern and more blankets to keep her warm. Hinata keeps close to me. Her warmth, I think, will permanently stay into my left side.

She thanks them as best she can, though her smile is tired. The Aburame leave, with Shino lagging behind, checking her bandages before promising to bring more for her in the morning. They leave her in cold, dark isolation, and Hinata drags me down with her onto the futon and rests her forehead against me shoulder.

‘I know you’re not real,’ I remember her saying, voice soft and waning, ‘but don’t leave.’

‘I’m real,’ I say.

‘You’re a clone. The real Sasuke is —’ She stops herself, a ball of panic forming within her. Her face lifts, and she stares at me through the dark. ‘I won’t ever see him again, will I? I’m going to be here forever, always hiding. I’m going to grow old here. I’m going to die here.’

‘Don’t say die,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t ever say that word again, Hinata.’

I pull her away from me and hold her arms out, and she understands and goes through the motions of breathing and sliding chakra from one hand to the other — slowly — one centimeter at a time. It helps her calm some.

‘You won’t be here forever,’ I promise her. ‘I won’t let that happen.’

She has that all-encompassing expression again, like every word I speak is truth, is fact. She has unyielding trust in me that I don’t know how to handle. It worries me, but I also wish for nothing else but her trust. I want her to believe me when I say I will protect her, that I will make things right. Uchiha Sasuke is a lot of things, but when he makes promises, he keeps them.

‘Don’t forget about me,’ she says.

I scoff. ‘How could I? You’re all I think about.’

So she leans in, and her mouth touches the spot below my rinnegan, and it’s acceptance and an apology and fondness and an unwillingness to part — but she knows we have to. It’s everything that I need it to be, and when my clone disperses and all of the memories hit me in my home, I feel her mouth still there, and I struggle to find my breath.

_____

I do not work the weekends, so Kakashi has the face of someone expecting bad news when I arrive at his office Saturday morning. Hokage Tower is almost peaceful on the weekends, with only the Hokage and a few staff taking up the rooms and hallways. There are no other Advisors here, probably enjoying their weekend with their family, sleeping in and letting the late-winter morning slowly warm their room. What a luxury. I’m sure none of them were disturbed in their evenings by the Hyuuga.

I announce, in a drawl, that Hyuuga Hinata will no longer be working the wall. This is not the news Kakashi was expecting, and both he and Shizune express their concern quietly. They hardly know her, but Hinata has the impression of someone reliable, and since I was the one who advocated for her, they expected nothing less of me picking a Hyuuga who would see to the wall until it was complete. Any bad news, they would take at face value.

But this . . .

“And the reason?” Kakashi asks.

My features remain neutral. “She’s gone missing, apparently, The Hyuuga came searching my estate for her last night, as if I’d have anything to do with it.”

“ Missing?” Kakashi’s face darkens. I know what he’s thinking. We sent for a request for information about the Hyuuga a few days ago, and now their heiress is missing. It can’t be a coincidence, he thinks. Something is happening with that clan.

When I examine Shizune’s reaction, it’s . . . not what I expect. I’m not exactly sure what her expression is, but it’s not like Kakashi’s. It’s not folding with deeper concern and suspicion. Instead, she seems rather tepid, though she refuses to say anything about it.

I’ve done my duty. To the rest of Konoha, I have no deeper affiliation with Hinata, and I’d be none the wiser as to her location. For now, I will play this act as long as I need to. After a few questions about last night and my suggestion to speak with the Chief of the Police Force, Kakashi allows my leave, and I step into the cold, adjust my coat’s collar around my neck, and leave for the Aburame.

_____

Opposite of the Hyuuga compound, in the southern corner of Konoha where forest takes hold of the lands, the Aburame clan live in seclusion. It is unfamiliar territory despite still residing in the territory of the village, so I keep my alarm high and my senses outstretched. It takes a little less than an hour to see the shabby homes of the Aburame peeking through foliage and tree lines. Without lag and caution, that time could have been shortened to thirty minutes; but I make sure I am not followed, so I take strange streets and comb through alleyways and pause by shops and bars. Only when I’m sure no one is tracking me do I head straight for the Aburame. The path turns narrow and weeded. Stone, then gravel, then dirt. When I am only a few meters away, I activate my mangekyo, and I am blinded by the different pools of chakra clinging to trees and homes and signs and rocks. The insect are full of it, probably bred by the Aburame to withstand their own chakra. If I were a Hyuuga who could see every point and channel in every creature, I’d be too overwhelmed to even begin to spot Hinata.

Shino meets me at the entrance of the complex. One of the beetles, I suppose, announced my arrival. He does not look surprised when I approach, nor is he miffed by my sudden showing. In fact, it seems as though he expected me to come, which I am glad for. The Aburame will have to get used to my frequent visits from now on.

“No Hyuuga have come,” he tells me, “and Hinata-chan is adjusting.”

He answered the two main questions blaring in my head. Are they obvious, I wonder. Is there something about my face that showcases my concerns? I have done well to keep any ounce of worry far from my expression since the Hyuuga’s arrival yesterday, but now that I am here, close to Hinata — my hold on myself begins to unravel.

“Bring me to her,” I say, wincing inwardly. Somehow, I sound far too desperate in my ears.

So Shino does, taking careful time to let me memorize the exact way to the bunker. It’s situated close to the center of the complex, where Aburame watch from far distances and pause in their activities to stare. They are quiet and strange. They keep to themselves and observe from afar, and I wonder how they feel about me. Do they regard me as a traitor? Now that I am here, will they second-guess their decision to help Hinata? I doubt that will happen. Even if they hate me, they will protect Hinata. I know they will.

When Shino brings me to the trapdoor that opens up to the cramped, deep staircase that leads down to the bunker, a wave of nostalgia touches me. Why is it that we are almost always underground and down stairways when Hinata and I meet? The Archive, and now this . . . the similarities cannot be ignored, and a sudden spike of amusement warms the backs of my teeth.

Shino opens the door for me, making no motion to enter with me.

He’s giving us privacy, and I ought to thank him one day for all he’s done for us, for Hinata.

I duck in, avoiding the hanging ceiling that threatens to bash itself into my head. When I am halfway down the stairway, the door shuts behind me, cloaking me in comforting darkness. The smell is damp and earthy, and it’s deathly cold — to the point where I think I might see my breath through the dark. This is where Hinata must hide, and I hate the idea of it, but I’m also immensely grateful.

My foot finds the hard flooring as I turn into the bunker. The ceiling is low. Standing upright puts five or six centimeters between the top of my skull and the top of the bunker. The light from the ceiling, hanging and swaying slightly, is on; so is the lantern in the corner, sitting upon a box by the futon.

And there, cocooned in several layers of blankets and quilts, sits Hinata.

When she sees me looming in the dim light, she looks mystified. She blinks, as if she’s imagining me, and then her mouth falls slightly when my form does not disappear.

“Are . . . you real?” she asks.

I crouch in front of her, examining her pale face and the bags under her eyes. “I’m not a clone,” I whisper.

One hand slips between blankets, reaching to touch me, though she doesn’t.

“I didn’t think I’d see you so soon,” she admits.

Does she think I can stand to stay away from her for more than a day while knowing her own family is out there, searching for her? Slowly, I peel a layer of blanket from her — one at a time, slowly, until I see her small form beneath it all. She’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, crusted with dirt and grime. Bruises have begun to form around her knuckles, and I want to strip her and find every mark on her body that her clan had given her. I long for the anger of it all, despite having felt nothing but rage for so much of this week. But the cold is getting to her, so I prompt her to show me her right leg, which she does with some struggle. The bandages I had wrapped around her ankle myself are still intact. I unwrap them and reveal the mirage of purple and blue and green beneath, my stomach rolling.

“I need to feel the bone,” I tell her, “to see if it’s more damaged.”

I am not a medic-nin, but years of survival (and a few lessons from Sakura) have taught me how to find breaks in a bone. It will hurt — it will hurt badly — but if her injuries are severe, then I need to know as soon as possible.

Hinata knows this. It’s reflecting in her eyes. I roll up some of the bandages and place it between her teeth, and she steadies herself before me and grabs onto my biceps, readying, preparing. I push into the skin of her ankle, and her groan of pain strikes me. It grinds into me and makes my teeth ache. I push more, searching, as her upper body twists and shudders in pain. She cries out and moans, her fingers digging deep into my arms. I feel a fracture, then another — but the bone feels firm, and nothing seems brokened or shattered. Somehow, she managed to run on the thing without ruining her ankle forever. I quickly push chakra into my fingers, willing its normal fire to cool and soothe her pain. Healing is not what I do, but I have to try.

Tension eases from her body over the stretching seconds of a minute. She lets out a tight breath, and when I pull away, I finally look up at her. I ease the bandages from her mouth, frown at the dents of her molars and canines in it, and ask if the Aburame brought her any extra supplies this morning. She gestures to a collection of boxes to the side, and I find extra bandages and wrap up her ankle once more.

“It’s done,” I tell her, at last.

Her eyes are glassy, but not with tears. Hinata nods, leans in, and rests her face into my side. My right arm maneuvers around us, sheathing us in quilts, and I find peace in her calm breaths and subtle warmth.

_____

“Sasuke,” she says, after a while. Time has passed, though I don’t know how long. There is no sun nor clock to tell, but at the moment, I’m not inclined to get up and find out exactly how deep into the morning we are. I am in that state just before sleep, where imagination goes wild as the body begins to lock down. I had been thinking about something pleasant, but when Hinata’s small voice says my name, it all drifts away, and I suddenly remember none of it. “You told me not to apologize about yesterday —”

“Hinata,” I say. Not in a warning. Not in any way at all. I just say her name.

She shifts, pulls back slowly, and finds my gaze.

“You were right,” she says. “I should have known that . . . I-I don’t know. I guess I was being emotional.”

“We’re all inclined to emotions, Hinata.”

“I guess — um, I guess I need to get b-better at being more confident in myself.”

I twist my torso so that her face is nearly lodged into my neck, and then I take her chin and lift it to face me.

“I do not want you to doubt yourself,” I tell her. “With me . . . it will not be easy when you are with me. You have to know that. I am not a good person, and the village wants me gone, or dead, or both. They will give you trouble if you stay with me, Hinata. That’s what I meant.” Because it will happen. When — if — all of this blows over and figures itself out — when ( if ) Hinata can return to a normal life without running or hiding from her clan — and when . . . if . . . our relationship continues and becomes public, the village will not let it simply slide. They may grow to hate her as much as they hate me. What kind of woman, after all, would like someone as heartless and violent as Uchiha Sasuke? The idea that they will turn their rage onto her worries me, angers me, frightens me. “I was cruel to you yesterday, and I am sorry.”

She buzzes, and that pretty pink that I have missed so much returns to her face.

“W-Well,” she says, fighting a smile, “I guess I-I’m a runaway now, so I guess it’s kind of romantic. A traitor and a runaway.”

“Romantic?” I snort, amused.

“And you are a very good person, Sasuke.” Her hands circle my neck, thumbs rubbing small circles into my jaw that distract me for a moment. “You came here, a-and you protected me.”

I have the idea to fight her on that, but then her fingers trail up into my hair, and I’m lost. “You give me . . . too much credit,” I murmur.

“And Konoha is silly to hate you. I shouldn’t have said — I-I mean — I’m sorry about what I said. I don’t think they have any right to.” My eyes slit open as I look down at her — bruised and dirty, with knotted hair and stained clothes — and I can’t believe how beautiful she is. I must be a fool, I suppose, to find her the most attractive now: hurt and hidden away in some bunker. She situates closer to me, until all I see is her features softly lit in the lantern’s light. “And even if they did have a good reason, I’m not them. I-I like you, Sasuke. I’ll always like you.”

My arm wraps around her waist, and her fingers beg my head forward. I think, suddenly, about nothing except the urgent need to kiss her — and then, just like that, she yelps, and she lunges onto me and nearly knocks me to the floor.

I grab her, steady her, and try to understand what has just happened.

“S-Something just c-c-crawled on me,” she whispers.

I bring the lantern closer and find, indeed, a spider has found itself on the futon.

. . . No, scratch that. A tarantula.

When Hinata sees it, she squeezes me more and gawks.

“O-O-Oh!” A dreadful shiver takes her.

I think about stomping the thing into the ground until it stops twitching, but it could be . . . a pet, maybe, or surveillance for the Aburame. So, instead, I slowly pull Hinata off of me, slide a piece of cardboard under the creature until it steps on, and carry it out of the bunker. I take a quick look at the sky and realize more time has passed than I thought. I should leave soon. If I’m suddenly disappearing for hours on end, too, then word will surely get to the Hyuuga about it. How annoying.

But, for now, I return to Hinata, who is carefully checking all of her blankets before re-wrapping herself in them.

“I’m not very fond of bugs,” she tells me once I settle next to her, blushing, “but I didn’t have the heart to tell Shino-kun.”

I feel the starting quirk of a smile in the corner of my, and I kiss her temple and let her settle against me once more.

_____

Shino’s mother has the good idea to bathe Hinata on Sunday. A note comes to me on the back of a beetle in the very early hours of morning, before the sun can begin to rise. The thing finds the window of my bedroom and starts chirping until I have the mind to throw something at it. The only thing that stops me from squashing it into the sill is that small, folded note stuck with gel to its back. I read that the Aburame requests I come at dawn with no explanation to satisfy my curiosity, so I dress and eat and make my way over just as the horizon begins to pinken.

And there I meet Ayano Aburame, a flittering thing that somehow seems both smooth and jumpy. Her hands have a habit of twitching, but when she walks, she is graceful and quiet, and her voice is slow. She tells me that Hinata ought to be bathed, and that her clan owns spring rooms where they mix healing herbs into the water to help with swelling. Now, when the village is sleeping, they should be able to sneak Hinata to the surface for a wash; and she tells me that while Hinata seems very pleased with the idea of being cleaned and dressed into something new, she requested my presence.

I think I have an idea why.

My theory is proven correct when we help Hinata out of the bunker and into a shack surrounding a steaming spring, where plants hang and crowd the walls and insects seem to cover every nook of the place. Hinata’s face turns a startling pale when she watches a centipede crawl just a few centimeters ahead of her.

“O-Oh my goodness.” She turns to me, aghast.

Ayano, oblivious to Hinata’s terror, tests the water and brings out towels and soaps for their future use.

“Uchiha-san will do good in standing guard,” she suggests.

Hinata grabs my hand before I can even consider the option.

“He will stay,” she insists.

Ayano considers this, than me. Her eyes narrow for a reason I can’t understand — until, of course, she begins to help Hinata undress. Suddenly, I realize the situation I’m in, and I do well to keep my gaze on the creatures around me that buzz around flowers and climb up the damp walls. The sloshing of water turns my gaze hazy, and I suppose the Aburame’s earlier suggestion was something I should have taken. Now I’m here, listening to sloshing and dripping water and the scrub of a washcloth on skin.

“Sasuke,” Hinata calls. “Can you make sure, um, that there’s nothing in my clothes.”

She means the neat pile by the spring that she will change into after her wash. I creep over, eyes hovering to an absent corner of the building, and wait for my foot to nudge the pile. Finally, I look down and inspect and find it’s free of any creatures.

“Insect know the value of privacy,” Ayano tells Hinata with a chirp as she scrubs shampoo into her hair. “Do not worry about them.” Then her head turns my way, and her eye is weary and sharp, almost accusatory. “Humans, sweet thing, are the vile creatures you should worry about.”

Her insinuation is noted and not appreciated, but I keep my eye on appropriate things through the bath, and even after. And when Hinata is washed and leaves the spring water to dry, and I don’t fall into the minute temptation that’s gradually growing inside of me.

Even when a buzzing thing zips past her ear, terrifying her enough to launch onto me, damp and warm and partially clothed, I shut my eyes and will it all to breeze past me. Uchiha Sasuke already has the reputation of a traitor; I do not need the Aburame to add pervert to the mix.

_____

I continue to see her throughout the week, even as work starts its grueling pace into March. She asks me on Monday what the weather was like and how many meetings I had, and I answered them all patiently but with little depth to them. Only when I arrived home that evening did I realize she was asking because she was desperate for details about the upper world. Stuck in a bunker for days, I imagine, cannot be exciting. So on Tuesday, I take note of everything I can — from the strange, vibrant shoes one of the Advisors is wearing to the fresh smell of rice and udon that fills the streets when I meet Sakura for lunch. I count clouds in the sky estimate how much longer it will be until trees start to grow their leaves, and once I’m finished with work, I go to that small, dark bunker and tell Hinata every detail I can remember.

On Wednesday, Shizune knocks on my office door and enters before I can give her allowance. Her smile is tight, almost secretive, as she drops two convenience store bags on my desk.

“I figured,” she says, “that these might be important.”

When she leaves, I inspect the content inside. Moisturizer, lip balm, nail clippers and combs. There’s a pack of small hair ties and mint gum, and I know that this is all for Hinata. Shizune figured it out. She probably knew since Saturday morning, when I played the part of an unknowing bystander who was rudely suspected of stealing a Hyuuga for no good reason. She knew, but she hadn’t ratted me out. Instead, she went to a nearby corner store and quietly left the contents of her trip on my desk so that I might give them to Hinata the next time I see them.

Some of me is annoyed. I don’t like being read easily, especially by someone so close to Kakashi. But that annoyance is quickly melted when I bring the bags to Hinata and watch her face light up with every product she pulls out.

When Friday arrives, I find myself in The Archive. By instinct, my fee took me there, and my mind did not catch up until I enter the small room full of shelves and chairs, unwrap myself from my layers, and realize, suddenly, that Hinata will not come. She cannot. She is hiding away in a bunker full of insects while her clan searches the streets for her.

Which should be fine, I tell myself.

There have been Fridays where Hinata has not come, and I came and read and enjoyed my sanctuary all the same. It was not Hinata, after all, that originally brought me here. It was the isolation, the quiet — the way I could pretend, for three hours, that I was far away from Konoha.

. . . But months have passed since those days, and things have changed over time.

It’s true that there have been days where, since we’ve started talking, Hinata would be unable to come to our weekly retreat. And those days, I can admit now, were torturous. They were lonely, and they stung, and they brought me no peace at all. Instead, I would spend my three hours thinking about her, telling myself I could live without her but — ultimately — I knew I couldn’t. I can’t. I still can’t.

And so, without any hesitation, I do what an Uchiha Sasuke in the past would have loathed to do.

I change the routine.

_____

I tell Hinata to sit down on the futon and close her eyes, and then I lean over, hold out her hands, and place the books there. Her arms fall for a moment, not expecting the weight, before they straighten once more with ease.

“Alright,” I say. “You can open them.”

So she does, and she holds out the books before her and examines them. Quickly, she recognizes they’re from The Archive — the History section in particular. One of them is a textbook she had gotten halfway through, and the other two were carefully picked based on the sorts of stories I know she likes to read about.

When her eyes lift to me, a strange discomfort takes me.

“I managed to talk the librarian into letting me borrow a few.” It hadn’t been easy. The lady was not fond of me at all, and only gave in when I not-so-subtly implied that I could easy go to the Hokage about library funding at any time. Hinata, of course, does not need to know that part. “They’re due next Friday, so you have a week to read it all.”

“Oh,” is all Hinata says.

She doesn’t sound upset, but she doesn’t exactly sound pleased either.

“Is something wrong?” Was it a bad choice? Perhaps she’s tired of history by now. Would she have preferred a different read?

If she asks, I can go return these now and bring her something new before the library closes. The librarian won’t be happy at all, but I’m not concerned about that.

Instead, Hinata pats the spot on the futon next to her, and I lower myself and sit. I watch her carefully place the books down, and then she turns to me. I only see a flash of her eyes before, suddenly, I’m on my back against the futon with her on top of me, splayed across me, her hand pinning mine down into the quilts.

It’s that red again on her face. The one that makes her look beautiful beyond words, and my heart stops, starts, then stops again when her mouth opens to speak.

“It’s okay that I kiss you,” she whispers, eyes dropping to my mouth, “right?”

The first thing that comes to my mind is finally, which I bite down on before it can claw itself out of my mouth.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“W-Well . . . I thought you were going to kiss me a few days ago, but you didn’t.”

I try to think what day she means. Saturday, maybe, when a spying tarantula interrupted us.

“Hinata,” I breathe as more of her body falls over me.

“I know — the, um, thing was there that you took out.” Just the memory of it makes her squirm, which does my attention no good as her body rubs into me. “But after that, you didn’t kiss me.”

The bunker is awfully warm. Warm and damp. Has it always been like that?

“Because,” I say, after an exhale, “you had just forgiven me.”

The paleness of her iris turns molten — it looks almost like pearl, almost like crystal. It suddenly holds a million colors that I never knew existed as her breath fans over my mouth.

“It isn’t normal to kiss after you make up?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I grit out.

Her fingers squeeze into my hand as she leans down, finally, and kisses me. I’m ready for her mouth coaxing mine. I’m excited when her teeth take a teasing tug at my bottom lip. But I don’t expect her tongue to slip in and taste me. My body freezes, then arches, and I quickly lose all air from my lungs and lose awareness of anything that isn’t her or her mouth of her hand or her legs around me. Oxygen is quickly leaving my brain by the time she leans back, panting, looking down at me with a tempting, wet mouth.

“Can we make it a thing?” she asks.

And I murmur, “Alright.”

“From now on, if we fight, we make up and do this.”

“Alright,” I repeat, because it’s the only word I know and, really, I’d say anything to get her mouth on me again.

Thankfully, alright seems good enough, because Hinata quickly catches her breath and leans back down for another round.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, I forget Hinata’s miner background. She doesn’t look like one, though (admittedly) my image of a stereotypical miner could be skewed. I picture someone covered in soot and wearing yellow hardhats. I picture wide shoulders and squarish features and the rough exterior of someone who has gone into the pits of the earth, seen hell, and survived. If I was asked to guess Hinata’s previous place of employment based on outer appearances alone, I’d say a gardener, maybe, or a librarian. A librarian with a pair of oval spectacles hanging from a chain around her neck that she wears only when there’s rowdy kids around that she needs to give a stern talking to about disturbing the peace. A librarian who might know every history book in The Archive by heart. A librarian who might have a crush on that recluse Uchiha who comes by every Friday — on the dot.

I would not mind a universe where Hyuuga Hinata worked the library.

I do not mind, however, that in this reality, she used to scour the mines for ore.

I do not mind because the strength of years of training and working is still in her arms; I feel it in the hand that pins mine down, and I am excited by it. Which is strange. In most cases, the idea of being bested in strength would put me on alert. Fight or flight would ring through my system, and I would do anything in my power to get out of such a compromising position before the enemy had a chance to attack.

. . . But Hinata, I remind myself, is not the enemy. She is so far away from being my enemy.

I wouldn’t let an enemy use her mouth on me like Hinata does. My mind would not grow hazy and nebulous with every coax of her tongue and brush of her teeth. I am trapped between the soft of the futon and the soft of her, and my body is wrapped into a sort of heat that drags any tension out of me until I am pliable, lax.

“Sasuke.” She comes up for breath, swaying on her arms. She’s just as affected as I am, and she looks down at me like I’m the gift of rain to her parched soul. “I’m scared I might eat you.” The blurry outline of her pupil twists into something almost tangible as she seems to grapple for some control over herself. When I feel my pulse catch at the sight, I realize that I don’t mind the idea of Hinata losing control. Not when it’s like this. “You can tell me when to stop.”

I can’t imagine that word — stop — will pass my mouth any time soon.

With my elbow sinking into the quilt, I angle myself up to her mouth again. She hums her glee and devours all that she can from me. Greedy, I think. I can’t blame her. I’m just as greedy. When her body starts to tremble some, I think it’s because of the passion or the begging of her lungs for air. Only when her hand releases me and she adjusts do I realize she’s tiring. Her arms have been holding her up, and I think I see the awkward angle her injured leg is at to keep her body above me. An easy fix, I think, already starting to lift my back from the futon. We’ll switch, and I’ll get to push her head deep into the quilts as I kiss her from above, giving her no room, no way of leaving; nothing but my mouth. And maybe my hand will find hers again and pin it above her head, and she’ll brighten with excitement that will mirror my own.

The switch doesn’t happen.

Instead, Hinata relaxes her legs and rests her hips against my lap, and a jolt sparks between us. The contact is new — or rather, it’s missed. It reminds me of that day in The Archive, with her on top of me in my chair, and I dare any Aburame to test their luck and try to come down here. I breathe out something pleasant, and Hinata turns greedy again, nipping and licking and worshipping any part of my mouth she can reach.

Somewhere in the mix, I hear a pitched ‘ Why is it —’ followed by a gasp and a quick ‘that every time I’m with you,’ which then crawls into a heated series of molding kisses before her mouth lifts just enough from mine to finish with ‘I always want to do something like this?’ When she looks at me, it feels like she has opened me up. I always feel revealed when she looks at me, like there’s nothing I could truly hide from her.

“Do you feel the same?” she asks.

I sneer, half because I feel strange to admit something so intimate, half because the answer should already be plainly clear.

“Yes,” I murmur, “ obviously.”

“So you don’t mind?”

“Hinata.” I groan. “Does it look like I mind?”

Her kisses turn affectionate as she peppers them on my chin, my nose, the corners of my mouth. Suddenly, I’m faced with the fact that she loves me, that Uchiha Sasuke is loved. Something maybe he doesn’t deserve, and something he definitely did not think he would ever receive. But here he is; here I am. I sit up, my hand around her back to keep her close, and I match her affections and enjoy the way she laughs as my mouth tickles the side of her jaw before I return to her lips.

_____

It’s been over a week since Hinata’s escape from her clan. A panic seems to have settled with the Hyuuga. On the rare occasion that I pass one of them while on my way to work or home, they are dreadfully tense. The fact that they are out and about the village is a concern on its own; before Hinata’s disappearance, they seldom left their estate. They garnered the reputation of a secretive, recluse clan that brought some gossip from the villagers, but nothing beyond that. Their recent rise in numbers while scouting the streets brings quite a bit of attention to their name, and nothing good comes from the rumor mill of Konoha. It’s a blessing that most civilians don’t have the mind to search for the trackers Recon ordered to follow the Hyuuga around.

Things begin to take a roll on Monday when an unscheduled meeting with the Council is held that afternoon. My fellow Advisors seem just out of the loop as I am, but one look at the Hokage’s displeased expression tells me that no good news is coming to this meeting. Something with the Hyuuga, probably, It’s always those damn Hyuuga.

And I’m right. I always am.

He starts the meeting lowly, explaining that the Hyuuga Head himself had come to his office early that morning, officially requesting the help of Konoha in finding Hyuuga Hinata. Shizune has already gotten in contact with the Inuzuka clan and, soon, the Aburame. Tension builds up in the base of my spine. I am not worried about the Aburame. They will know how to deceive Konoha, placing tracking beetles all about the village while the very girl they are supposed to search for is within their territory. Instead, the Inuzuka, with their sharp noses and famous tracking skills, is what worries me. It is said that Inuzuka Kiba can follow a week-old scent through rain and storm. An exaggeration, probably, but not one I’m about to take a chance on. If a trail doesn’t already lead him to the Aburame, that he could very easily pick up a scent off of myself or Shino.

Something will have to be done about him.

Before I can consider any options, however, the Hokage settles a hip on his desk, and he crosses his arms and nods for Shizune to gather a scroll and unroll it before us.

“On the same note, we have just received a message from Iwagakure regarding the Hyuuga.” His eye flashes my way for a moment, and I can’t bring the steel out of my hand as I grip at my pant leg. “Shizune-san, would you mind?”

“Not at all, Hokage-sama.”

In a void tone, professional for her employment, Shizune reads the scroll.

As it were, most of the content is full of what I already know based on previous conversations I’ve had with Hinata. The Hyuuga Clan borders on nomadic, where they travel from one village to another with seemingly no rhyme or reason. The clan had arrived in Iwagakura over two decades ago, brought in by the demand for ore and coal miners that were in big demand at the time. With their dōjutsu, the Hyuuga were quickly allowed entrance on the contract that every healthy member of their clan would work the mines. The report goes on to detail that the Hyuuga were a secretive, quiet clan. They hardly made any stir in society and seemed to shy away from any attention brought in by the village. A few years ago, Iwagakure began to suspect the Hyuuga’s byakugan harbored power beyond seeing through the earth, but any attempts at researching the dōjutsu was met with reclusivity and threats of leaving. In the end, Iwa left them alone, and the Hyuuga stayed for six more years.

And then, suddenly, they left early last year. No explanation was given. Sixteen members were left behind, too old or weak for the journey to Konohagakure. The vague language of the report in this section frustrates me, but if what Iwa says is true and they truly were given no answers from the Hyuuga, then I cannot fault them.

Shizune pauses, steadies her voice, and turns to the next paragraph. I see the locking of her joints and the squaring of her shoulders.

Something is in this next section. Something that could change the rhetoric.

The report details an incident in late December of last year. Strange, unidentified objects were reported to have fallen from the sky along the outskirts of Iwa’s territory, damaging some mines and road systems, but overall missing the majority of the village. What were assumed to be meteorites were instead found to be three vessels — three empty vessels. Despite intense investigations (or so Iwa reports), they could find nothing within the vessels. On high alert, Iwa shinobi were ordered to search the village for the following week, in which they found no new entities, but rather ones missing.

Sixteen Hyuuga were missing. All the ones that had stayed were gone.

And from how it sounds, they were never found.

My mind, for just a second, flashes to Hinata. If she had been one of the sick or injured left behind, she would been taken with the rest of them. In such a case, I never would have met her, but the thought gives me no relief.

Iwa found themselves short of resources. All of their shinobi were focused on internal affairs — advancing security and researching the foreign vessels that, for all they knew, could have been a plant from an enemy. They did not have enough hands to search for the Hyuuga, so they asked for the aid of other villages.

This, I suspect, is where Naruto comes in. A negotiator, in some aspects, or rather a scout. He was sent to get a read on the situation, and based on his message to Konoha, we would know which teams to send. What no one expected was for him to be attacked.

Shizune stops. That is the end of the report.

My fellow Advisors pass looks, but no one spreads a word. 

Sixteen people do not just go missing. There is some connection to those vessels that, after all this time, Iwa has still yet to find. Now we have a shinobi who has been seemingly attacked by said clan — of which sixteen of them have, without warning, gone off the face of the planet.

And now the Hyuuga heiress is gone.

It has nothing to do with unknown vessels, but they do not know that, and nor does the Hokage.

But I do. The Aburame do.

And when Shizune meets my eye across the way, I understand that, if things are not fixed quickly, everyone will have to know.

_____

I hardly have the heart to tell Hinata, but I do.

I make sure she’s sat securely on the futon, and then I lower myself across from her and I tell her about Iwa’s report. Throughout my retelling, my eyes are set on her face, her posture. Genuine surprise expands across her features when she hears about the vessels. She hadn’t known about it. Most of the Hyuuga, I suspect, do not know. The Head may not, or he may have a suspicion; but if he did know, he has kept it from his daughter and possibly the rest of his clan.

“That’s not all,” I say after a pause. Her mind is already creating a million outcomes. I can see the electrical panic in her eyes, the travesties of her imagination. She might think the Hyuuga left behind were killed in the aftermath of the crash landings. They may have been poisoned by toxic gas emitted from the vessels. They could, in fact, still be trapped from whatever havoc has overcome Iwa. I touch her knee to bring her out of her thoughts, and then I continue. “They’re missing. No one has seen them since the vessels landed.”

“Missing,” she repeats, taking in the meaning of the word. “Missing?”

“Vanished.”

“And no one has . . . ?”

I shake my head, giving her silence to digest the information. Shock is cold on her body. She hardly moves, hardly breathes. In a way, she fades into the darkness of the bunker. The dim light of the ceiling lamp seems to go through her instead of touching and reflecting off her skin.

“Now that the Advisors know, they will not think of your disappearance as a coincidence.”

“Does my father know?” she asks.

A job for Kakashi. Tomorrow, he and the Hyuuga Head will meet, and we may finally know if the Hyuuga are just as unknowledgeable of this situation as we believe them to be. “He will.”

Hinata frowns, but says nothing more. Another million scenarios play through her mind, too fast for me to get a read on any of them.

“Do you know anything?” I eventually ask. I may already know the answer, but I have to try.

“No — n-no. My father never . . . I just don’t understand.”

Her expression bends into frustration, and I touch her knee again. “That’s fine, Hinata. You don’t know.”

“Maybe if I think . . . .”

“Think, then,” I agree. “Give yourself time to process.”

She takes my hand from her knee and presses her face into it, savoring the warmth and comfort from my palms.

“I’ve been having nightmares,” she admits to the dark.

My bloodstream feels like a river in the dead of winter. I know the extent of nightmares, the kind of toll they can have on a person. Not only mentally, but physically, too. Fatigue is a poison not many people know until they are plagued with nightmares of a killer brother and the halls of their home painted red. I had not thought about nightmares, but I should have. Damn it, of course she would have them after what her clan tried to do to her.

“I miss my sister,” she says, “and Neji. I’m worried about them. I want to see them, Sasuke, but I can’t.”

“I’ll check up on them.” How is a question for another time. For now, the goal is to give her as much comfort as I can. I am not a man of comfort, but with her, I try to be. I try. “I’ll report back to you.”

Her smile is small and weak, but real. She takes that familiar pose next to my side, taking my side, my strength, like it’s her own.

“Alright,” is the last thing she says for the rest of the day.

_____

I do not expect Hyuuga Hiashi to find my office on Tuesday, but he comes without regard for what I am expecting or not expecting. I know of his arrival at noon. The common man mused about with a fellow Advisor as they passed my office door. He had depicted the Head as a ‘alien man’, with those eyes of that clan. The common man, as it were, did not mingle with Hyuuga often. Just knowing the bastard was in the same building as me made work impossible, so I took my lunch early, ate something fresh across the street, and took a few rounds around the block to clear any smog from my lungs. When I returned, the Head was there by my door, waiting for me like he had all the time in the world.

“Uchiha-san, I require an urgent word with you.”

The way he said urgent did not match the word: slow and easy, almost in a dismissive tone. The corner of my mouth sneers back, but I give him entrance and let him linger by the doorway for a moment, taking in the gloomy dark of my office. I wonder if he knows anything about New Year’s Eve, about how Hinata came here and made the whole room an entirely new place with her presence. I motion for him to sit as I lean against my desk, but he remains standing. Of course he does. My father would have done the same if he ever needed an ‘urgent’ word with me.

“I will speak frankly with you,” he says, tone changing some. It’s not exactly faraway; instead, there’s something tangible about it. Something that I can grab onto and follow. “If you know the location of my daughter, I humbly request that, for the sake of her safety, you tell me where she is.”

I knew this was coming, but I’m still mildly intrigued. Perhaps the Hyuuga Head is more desperate than I originally thought. Does this have anything to do with what Kakashi and he spoke about just moments ago? Either way, I’m not the king to easily give in. If he’s desperate enough, I’ll have him bowing on his hands and knees before he gets anywhere close to my admission.

“Your clan found nothing at my estate,” I tell him blandly, “and I see no reason to understand why you’d think I would have anything to do with her disappearance.” His expression stays firm and blank, and I’m biting away a smirk. “I will match your frankness, Hyuuga-sama, and say that the most likely scenario is that your daughter ran away.”

The aggravation I hope for does not come. Instead, he says, calmly, “You put her on the wall.”

“So I did. She asked me to.”

“She snuck out to meet you, Uchiha-san. I know there is more to your relationship than what you portray.”

“And yet, I do not know where your daughter is,” I muse.

The Head hovers in the center of my office, contemplating. I see patterns and behaviors that remind me of Hinata, no matter how the thought angers me. He has the same eyes as his daughter; not as kind or considerate, but they reflect thoughts and concentration. They hover to the side as he thinks, and only when he comes to terms with something does he turn back to me, gaze full of focus.

“If I tell you that my daughter is in danger, will you tell me where she is?”

I don’t believe him. For all I know, this is a ploy to garner my sympathy. He thinks that, if I have any sort of relationship with Hinata, I will give in to the prospect of her being in danger. Hah. If such danger exists, he’s doing a shitty job at showcasing it.

“I do not know where your daughter is, Hyuuga-sama,” I drone.

“The Hyuuga have an enemy.” His voice is controlled. So controlled that, again, I struggle to believe him. But I do not interrupt him, but instead lean further against my desk to listen. “Because of our dōjutsu, we are targeted. To be more specific, if someone in our clan advances the byakugan too much, he will sense our location and come for the byakugan.” A small pause, and then he adds, more gravely, “In some cases, he will take the member, as well.”

My fingers tap a dismissive beat into the surface of the desk as I consider him. “If I’m to believe your story, Hyuuga-sama, then you mean to tell me that the vessels found in Iwa were the cause of the Hyuuga disappearance.”

“You understand me correctly.”

“A bit convenient that we just so happened to learn about this, don’t you think?”

“If you do not believe me, then you are putting my daughter in danger.” Finally, a slip in that cold mask. His voice dips into an edged frustration as his brows draw together. I wonder if his anger is genuine. It’s hard to tell at this point. “My daughter’s byakugan is advanced enough to be detected. Our only chance to protect her and my clan is by sealing her, but she escaped before the process could be finished. Do you understand what I am saying, Uchiha-san? My clan was protecting her.”

It almost falls out of my mouth: ‘If it were to protect her, then why did Hinata not see it that way?’ I close my mouth around the question before it can get out of me. For all he knows, I shouldn’t know anything about Hinata’s reasons for escaping her family. Not until I can be certain that he’s telling me the truth.

“If the Hyuuga do have an enemy,” I say, after a moment, “then tell me who he is.”

Because that is all I have gotten. He. One man, supposedly, who is enough of a threat to the Hyuuga that they are willing to seal and blind their heiress to get off of his radar.

Hiashi’s mouth opens, snaps shut, opens again.

He says nothing. He does not get the chance to.

We hear the roar first; the bellow of something tearing through air at hurdling speeds. Like a train, or thunder — or maybe both. Then we hear what can only be described as an explosion before the ground rattles violently beneath us, flinging books from my shelves and unfinished paperwork all over the floor. I grab onto my desk, stabilize myself, and once the shaking is gone, I advance into the hallway. It’s havoc there, full of frightened and confused faces. There are yells of earthquakes or explosions, but no one is for certain. I push through, bulldozing into the Hokage’s office, where everything is dark. Dark? It’s hardly past one in the afternoon. Why would everything be dark?

The glow of my sharingan casts a red beam across the office, where I find Kakashi and Shizune staring out one of the windows. They are frozen, for a moment. Statues from eras ago. Only when I come to them, wound and ready for any attack underway, does Kakashi break out of his spell, curse, and leave the office.

Shizune looks ready to join him, but her stern gaze turns to me before she rushes out.

“Hinata-san,” she says.

That’s all she says, and my blood drains from my body as I look out the window.

An eclipse has taken over the sky, casting all of the village into an immense shadow. But that is not the only cause of darkness, for to the south, long trails of black smoke rise from the trees and clog the sky.

Right where the Aburame clan resides.

I body flicker onto the roof of Hokage Tower for a better vantage point, where I see a scar in the earth. A massive dent, as if something has fallen from the sky and landed directly there. A vessel, maybe.

Hinata.

When I sprint forward, I do not feel anything beneath my feet.

Chapter Text

My body feels light. It feels as though something has been taken out of me; lungs, or maybe my ribs. I do not feel deflated, but rather like the density in my bones has lightened to that of feathers, and when the usual gravity pushes down on me, the expected reaction of my mass to push back is not there. In a way, one could say that I might be floating; hovering; just barely skimming the surface.

I’m so overwhelmed by this sensation that it takes a moment for my mind to scrape out of foggy sensories and thoughts to realize that, somehow, I am coming into consciousness. Had I been unconscious before? I must have been. You can only become conscious if you had previously been unconscious. I needle my memory for a reason, but I find nothing. The files of my mind are scattered, or maybe illegible. I can’t make out anything. It’s so bad that I can’t even recall my own name for a moment.

And then my eyes open, and with the soft, silver glow seeping into my pupils, the name Uchiha Sasuke pops to mind, and I frown. That’s strange. I have passed out a handful of times and had my fair share of deep slumbers, but never have I come to without the ability to recognize my own name. That’s not common. Even in my trips to the hospital, I’ve woken up to starch sheets and glaring lights with the knowledge of who I am and where I am still rattling in my head.

The glow around me dims as I blink, adjusting my eyes to the light. It’s rather dazzling. Unless the hospital recently replaced all their lights with shimmering, pretty bulbs that would fit much better into a child’s playhouse, then I must be far away from any starch hospital bed. They struggle enough with funds as it is — so new lights are definitely out.

I blink again, my gaze finally clearing. I don’t make out much. Is that a ceiling above me? Are those walls? It’s all the same color, and everything seems to glow in some way. What the hell? 

I try to move. I don’t.

When I search for the feeling of my arm — the attached one — I don’t find it. I turn my head, make sure, and see that it’s still there, still connected to my shoulder. I watch it lift, watch my hand flex, palm facing my way, fingers curling in before stretching out, and I feel nothing. Not the tug of minor muscles or the stretch of skin. I press my elbow into the floor, lift up my torso, and I do not feel that either.

Something is off.

I cannot feel my body, I do not know where I am, and I have no memory of how I got to this place.

What is the last thing I remember?

I think . . . I remember eyes that share the same, odd silver of this place surrounding me. Stern, sharp eyes that turned more and more desperate as the minutes stretched on. I remember something rattling them; an explosion. Was there an explosion? What else would make dead eyes like that look so alive and frightened? Maybe Konoha was attacked. Tch. Hell if it was. I wonder if my dear, fellow Advisors are waking up in similar states, scared out of their minds. Have we been taken prisoner by the enemy? I wonder if they’d let me watch those fools being tortured. I told them, countless times, that we needed to be prepared for an attack — this is what they get for not listening to the only sensible mind of the whole fucking Council.

I check my person, but I find no evidence of imprisonment. No chakra-draining cuffs or chains wrapped around my feet to keep me stationary. All of my limbs are free. I spot a door, stand, and open it. Unlocked. If I’ve been taken, my takers have done a lousy job at it.

An explosion. Is that really what happened? I recall the shake of the tower and the way I leaned my body into my desk to stay standing. It was roaring, wasn’t it? Loud. And it was dark. Kakashi and Shizune had been alarmed, so it must have been bad. An explosion. I remember looking out a window and seeing smoke. The sky was dark. Everything felt encapsulated by shadow and smoke. Did another one go off? Did the second explosion kill off the rest of Konoha, and I am waking to the afterlife?

That can’t be it. Surely, I’d been in the pits of hell rather than here.

Beyond the door is a long, tall corridor; silver, as expected. The further I go, the more complex the structure becomes. There is no furniture, no decor, but the foundation begins to take odd shapes. Designs carved into marble walls. Arching doorways and domed roofs. A palace, I think. Somehow, I have foud myself in a palace.

An empty palace.

There is no noise, no movement, no common man shaking in his britches as he slowly comes out from hiding. Am I the only one here? Had my stupid captors only aimed to capture me? Was the explosion only a decoy, and distraction?

I gander through corridors and long rooms, dipping into room after room, searching.

It’s cold, but not freezing. Not as chill as early March in Konoha. Not as cold as those silver eyes that glared at me from across my office. Who was the man who had come to meet me? I see his face in my memory, but I can’t put a name to him. He had a frigid voice that matched his face, and he was not pleased, and I was likewise not pleased with him. Just thinking about him irks me.

Silver eyes.

I know those eyes.

I enter a room where the ceiling seems to tower fifteen meters above me, crystallized in painted glass that makes the silver floor dance with muted colors. The place has no windows. My idiot captors do not seem to want me to recognize where I am.

The back of the room is tucked away beyond the rainbow ceiling. Shadowy, I make out the outline of a throne as I slowly approach. Well, I suppose I should expect such a thing in a palace. But as I come closer, I think I see a figure slumped into the tall armrests of the throne. It is not the common man. It is smaller.

Small, almost fragile.

The toe of my boot scrapes the floor, causing the figure to wince and face me.

I see her face, and suddenly —

Hinata. That’s Hinata — and those eyes — the explosion — the smoke and the scar in the earth — the crash landing — the Aburame clan —

Suddenly, everything pieces together in my head, and I reel. I breathe out. I cannot feel any part of my body, not even the pulse in my chest or the pull and push of air through my lungs, but I feel the heat of adrenaline rush through me as I hurry to her.

“Hinata —”

“S-S-Sasuke?” She sounds surprised. She’s dressed in something dark that I’ve never seen before, and when I look at her face again, no longer distracted by an onslaught of memories, I see something that makes my mind pause.

Bandages.

There are bandages around her eyes. Why are there bandages around her eyes?

My fingers skirt the edge of her bandages when she flinches away.

“Don’t,” she whispers, turning her head away. “They’re — I — why are you here?”

Why does that matter? I could have appeared magically for all she could care, and it still wouldn’t matter.

“Hinata,” I sneer, “tell me what happened.”

I take her face and make it turn my way, taking in the look of her half-covered face. I feel sick. It can’t be what I think it is. It can’t. I wouldn’t have let it happen. I told her I would protect her, and I meant it.

“He —” she gasps out, freezes, and forces out the rest of the words, “took them.”

Shock does not have a long time to situate itself into my soul. Instead, rage tramples in, and with rage comes the smoke and fire and lightning of chakra — but that — why don’t I —

“Your chakra is blocked.” She must feel it. She has been around me enough to know how intertwined my emotions and my chakra is. When I search for it, for the boiling reaction, I find nothing — as if my channels have been drained. That is the lightness, the emptiness. And Hinata feels it, too. Even without her eyes, she knows. 

“Blocked,” I repeat.

“I guess — I don’t know. When he brought you here, he didn’t want you to wake up and . . . u-um, so he blocked your chakra.”

“Hinata,” I say, “who is he?”

She tilts her head. “Toneri-sama.”

Sama? Agitation joins that heated wave of adrenaline in my body.

“Well,” I hiss, “this Toneri-sama is a moron if he thinks blocking my chakra will subdue me at all.”

I take one free hand and put it on my shoulder, then take her other and guide her off the throning chair she sits upon. She is light and small, but the fold of her face reminds me of her injury, and I sneer. I want nothing more than to leave this place as soon as I can, but I will have to be careful to not hurt her more. I will have to find a safe place to put her, and then I will find this Toneri-sama and, one way or another, get Hinata’s eyes back.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says as I lead her into the hallway. “Why are you here?”

I saw no exit from the direction I had come from, so I turn us the opposite way and lead us into another, echoing room.

“That doesn’t matter,” I tell her.

“It wasn’t a part of the deal,” she says.

I don’t take this in immediately. I think I see a way that leads to a balcony, so I bring the both of us there, push open the doors —

And stop.

Indeed, it is a balcony. And from where we stand, I see the face of the planet staring back at me. A planet we should be on. I can make out the shape of a familiar continent — the deep greens of Konoha and the dusty expanses of Suna to the west. Everything else is black with the far away twinkle of stars in the distance. Behind us, the sun burns bright, and suddenly the silver and the lightness of my body makes sense.

The moon. We’re on the fucking moon.

I don’t question the why or the how. Those are questions meant for ponderment after our escape.

Instead, I slowly turn to Hinata, and I ask, “What deal?”

“A simple deal, Uchiha-san.” There comes a hollow voice that does not pass Hinata’s mouth, but rather echoes from the side. Hinata cringes and curls into herself, so I bring her behind me as I turn and see a new figure on the other side of the large balcony. A pale man I have never seen, twiggish and looking easy to break. I search for the sear of chakra, but it does not come — of course not. The openings behind my eyes ache, but my dōjutsu is unable to activate. Toneri-sama, I assume. The one that has taken Hinata and I hostage and has stolen the byakugan from her. Somehow, I can’t find anything intimidating about him. Rather, the small, bland smile on his mouth is nothing short of annoying. “Hinata-hime and I made a deal. If she gave me her eyes with no hassle, then I promised to bring you no harm.”

He must be lying. But when I feel Hinata’s fingers sink into my sleeve, I realize he’s telling the truth.

“Stupid girl,” I mutter, frowning at her. “What harm can someone like this bring me?”

Toneri’s smile does not pass. “Assumptions like that can get someone killed, Uchiha-san.”

When his eyes open, I feel, just for a second, the leap of my heart. Her eyes. The bastard has her eyes. He’s seeing, looking at me, with her eyes.

Yanking my arm away from Hinata, I advance. I launch my arm forward, determined to catch him and tear those eyes from his sockets, but my hand finds cool air as his form disappears. An illusion, maybe? When I turn, he’s looming behind Hinata, still smiling.

“Careful, Uchiha-san,” he says. “You are not very powerful without your chakra.”

Now I know he really must not know who I am or the reason why I am so feared. If he thinks the only reason I am a threat is because of my chakra, he is more of a fool than I thought. I advance again, not to attack, but to get him away from Hinata. I hate seeing him next to her; more, I hate how he looks at me with those eyes. They do not belong to him. I want nothing more than to pluck them from his skull.

No.

That’s a lie.

I want to kill him afterwards. Slowly, methodically. I want to smell the life draining out of his body.

So deep into my bloodthirsty thoughts, I do not realize he is not disappearing upon my advance. I do not realize anything until his palm hits the center of my chest. A searing pain statics through me. I grunt and surge back, almost crumbling until my right leg anchors back and pushes my body up, up, until I stagger into balance. Hinata yelps in horror, white as bone, while Toneri considers me with mellow wonder. He had expected me to fall. Any other shinobi would. The blast of chakra he just sent into my chest burned through my channels, as if boiling water was forced through my veins. Had he aimed more to the left, he would have hit my heart directly. He could have stopped it, but he didn’t.

Why? I look at Hinata, who breaks out of her shock to loop her body under my arm, stabilizing me.

“You said,” she whispers, “you wouldn’t hurt him.”

Ah, yes. The deal. My teeth clench as I glare at the bastard.

“And I haven’t,” Toneri muses.

“Then why is he here?” She holds me tightly, as if I might fall. Her voice has turned rough and pitched. I don’t think I have heard this voice. Tense with fear and anger, like a predator meeting his maker; a caged beast. Never, never do I want her to sound like this again. “Take him back to Konoha.”

Toneri’s laugh is slight, almost sympathetic. As if her words are pitiful. “I am protecting him by keeping him here. Soon, the planet as you know it will be no more.” He gives her a glance over, chilling my blood. Then, with a sweep of his hand, he gestures to the green and blue planet before us. “The thing is littered with insects. Corruption, greed, violence. Look what they have done to you, Hime. Look what they have done to your Uchiha-san —”

“Shut the fuck up,” I snap.

“I will do good in exterminating them, and with your advanced byakugan, Hime, we will create a new race of superior creatures.”

The rage takes over me again. I long for the snapping chakra inside of me to expand, gnaw, spark to life at my fingertips and within my eyes. The cold hollowness in its stead only enrages me more. I grab Hinata’s arms and pull them away, but before I can attack, Toneri shoves his palm into my chest once more, and the pain is so sudden and overwhelming that, this time, I fall back with a force that Hinata cannot prevent.

She yelps again, as Toneri looms in the dim outskirts of my vision.

“Odd pet,” he muses. “He will have to learn his place if he is to stay here.”

_____

I wake in the same state as before, only Hinata is cradling my head against her leg this time. My memories are more clear this time, slipping through me. The numbness of my body is still present, but I am still able to sit up. Hinata’s hands are cradling my face as I slowly turn to her, hardly able to look at her face. Those bandages are a dark reminder of what has happened to her, what she has given up.

“I wish you had made no plan with him.” My voice is croakish, barely used. How long have I been out?

Her fingers examine the back of my skull for any fracture or bump, and when she finds none, they return to my face and feel out my features. Is this how she will have to see me from now on? No, no. I will get her eyes back. This will not be permanent; I won’t let it.

“I had to,” she says. “He would have killed you.”

The memory of what had happened once I reached the Aburame is still foggy, but I can make a guess. I had meant to find Hinata, and while doing so, the bastard snuck up on me and knocked me out.

“I am not worth your eyes, Hinata.”

“Do not say that,” she hisses. “Never say that again, Sasuke.”

Not wanting to upset her, I nod, and I feel the rough knuckles of one of her hands with my fingers and try to transfer some of my courage into her.

“We are getting them back,” I tell her. “He’s going to wish he had killed me once this is all done with.”

We’re in one of those unmarked rooms, vacant of anything but our own persons. I suppose he could appear at any moment and whisk her away. Some of me is surprised that he even allows her to be here with me; but, then again, he probably sees me as no threat. What can an Uchiha and Hyuuga do, after all, without their dōjutsus?

Haah. Stupid bastard.

“How?” Hinata asks. “I cannot see, and you have no chakra.”

“I do not,” I say, “but you do.”

It does not take her very long to understand what I am implying. Immediately, she freezes up.

“I-I can’t.”

“You’ve done it before.”

“When I could see, Sasuke.”

Panic is rushing in before my confidence in her can settle, so I hold her hands in mine and rest my forehead against her, letting her feel my warmth and fully know that I am with her, then I am not just a voice.

“You have advanced so much since then,” I tell her. “You can do it.”

Hinata shakes her head. “You need the byakugan to see the chakra system. Without it, I’d just be poking at skin.”

“Others have done it before.” No, they haven’t. The best we have in the medical field is Sakura, who is hardly past 50% accuracy. But I don’t tell Hinata that because, no matter what, she is going to try. So far, this is the only chance we have. There is a good chance she will be unable to unblock the point that will allow chakra back into my eyes, but our chances of saving the planet from this crazy bastard will always stay at 0% if she refuses to try. “Hinata. I know where the point is. I can feel it. I’ll guide you. All you must do is push your chakra there. Alright?”

She swallows hard, stills, then nods shallowly. “A-Alright.”

“You have to trust me.”

“I do. I-I do, Sasuke.”

“Come on. Sit straight and give me your hand.”

Her right hand lifts, and I take it in mine and adjust so her index and middle finger trace up my throat, over my jaw, past my ear — to that soft part there the skull gives way to skin in the temple. I feel the dull pulse of a strained chakra point there, empty and ready to be released. Focusing there, I aim her fingers, adjusting and readjusting. The starting throbs of a headache makes the point hard to locate, so I take in a few breathes, calm my vexations, and wait. I listen to Hinata’s calm breathing and feel the warmth of her face so close to mine. She’s trying her best to stay calm, to keep her hands from shaking. My brave, small Hinata. She could be the best kunoichi in Konoha at this point.

When the throbbing fades, I turn her fingers up by just a centimeter. There, I think. That’s the spot.

The door squeaks. I see the narrow crack of the empty hallway behind it, and the air shifts around us.

Toneri.

“Hinata,” I warn, stopping myself from grabbing her and moving her too much. “ Now!”

And — like that, things erupt in cacophony,

I think I feel the prick of a cactus needle into my skull first. Or, maybe, I feel my palm slam into the hard floor as I sweep Hinata beneath me. Both pains, however, are minute to the chakra-coded fist digging into my spine from a behind attack. Bone seems to splinter out of place. Some of my spine, I think, gets lodged into my throat. When the fist hits, I choke, cough, and blood sprays over Hinata’s bandages. My blood. Blood from my mouth.

Hinata goes stiff behind me. Her mouth opens, closes, opens again.

“S-S-Sas— suke?”

A pop. A rumble that turns, slowly, into snapping. The blinking lights of lightning. I feel the reel, the tug — and there is that anger. That beautiful, familiar, scarring anger. Suddenly, Hinata — the floor — everything is a blaring red, and it’s not from blood. Not yet.

Chakra hissing, my mangekyo spins to life, and I begin to grin so wide that it hurts my face.

Chapter Text

“Oi.”

Toneri does not look right in the warm colors of The Archive. The smoky oaks of the shelves and the golden glow of the lights clash against the dull tones of his person. He seems to realize this — that he does not belong here. There’s a stark line of confusion across his face as he stares back at the shelves. He gets lost in them, I think. Maybe he thinks that he’ll discover the reason for his sudden appearance here if he keeps looking, keeps searching. Or, perhaps, he is looking for someone in particular; a girl who likes to spend her free time on Fridays between pages of history books.

He has no right to look for her, to even think about her.

So, again, I say, “Oi.”

And this time, his face slowly turns to my spot in my usual chair, one leg perches over my knee as I assess the situation. I know exactly what is happening — or rather, I know the majority of it. The location, however, surprises me. Of all the places to trap the bastard, why this sanctuary? Why this barely touched secret that is supposed to only belong to Hinata and I? The event with Naruto and his kyuubi is just starting to leave my restless mind; why am I keen to soil this place once more?

Toneri hovers just behind Hinata’s chair.

If he touches it, I think I’ll lose my mind. I’m already halfway there.

“Genjutsu,” he realizes softly.

Well isn’t he a smart bastard.

I take my time. Years here are seconds in the real world, so I find no reason to rush myself. I drop my feet to the ground and lift steadily. The normal sensations of The Archive do not hit me. I do not hear the footsteps overhead or smell the faint scent of lemon-chemical spray. Advanced genjutsu has the ability to totally create a mirage; a trick. It can touch every sense and manipulate the victim into believing that they, truly, are stuck in whatever world, whatever scenario the user has put them within. My sharingan is beyond advanced, but I make sure that sensory details are at a minimum. I do not want him to be distracted, to use something as a way to disassociate.

Toneri does well in hiding his fear — if he even feels it at all. He should, He would be an idiot if he did not know the extent of danger he is currently in. He only stares at me blankly through Hinata’s eyes, and I feel the licks of fiery anger carve through familiar paths in my body. If he is not terrified now, he will be soon.

“You cannot kill me here,” he says. “I know what you genjutsu can do.”

And I let myself smile at that. A cruel smile with no genuine mirth; rather, I’m quite pleased with his misplaced cockiness. I will enjoy shattering it.

“I don’t intend to kill you,” I tell him smoothly, “but when I’m done with you, you will be begging for it.”

Ghostly hands emerge from the carpet, grabbing onto his arms and torso and pulling him back, trapping him against the floor. I loom over him, watch as he struggles some, and I consider how I should like to start with him. Shinobi know the correct places to hit to deal the most pain or the most damage. I see the map in my mind, but as I look upon him, I realize that once I begin, it will be Hinata’s eyes that will swell with excruciating pain.

Those will have to go first.

I dip onto my knees, and because this is a genjutsu, I take no care not to damage the eyes. I rip them from his sockets, and he bites his mouth shut and trembles. Blood sprays across his pale, ghastly skin. A familiar, welcomed sight. I tuck the eyes away, and then I force his mouth open with my hand. More, shadowy hands spring forth and prompt it open for me, preventing him from biting down on me. Though I’d like to see him try.

“I cannot kill you here,” I muse, “so I suppose I will have to turn you into an animal. You had planned the very same fate for me, hadn’t you.” I see his pulsing tongue inside and grin. “Animals, as you know, do not speak.”

I take a leisurely time cutting it out, watching blood mix with saliva as he gags on it. Then I find different organs to squeeze and bones to crack and limbs to twist into odd angles and shapes. I get screams from him that excite me, that fuel me, that enrage me beyond belief that I kick in his jaw to keep him quiet. I stare into the empty sockets as he gurgles and thrums. I imagine that if he had his own eyes, they’d be lifeless — or maybe they’d be begging me for mercy. I imagine that the only expression I will ever see on that face of his is pure desperation.

When he starts to struggle, my genjutsu morphs. It dims, shudders, and I watch the bastard’s form transform back to normal. He becomes one whole again (save the eyes), and he sneers and trashes against his restraints again, this time with more vigor.

Ah. There’s that fear.

I go through the process of ruining him again, sometimes with methodical precision, other times with senseless rage. I beat him into a sagging heap of bones and flesh, and then I bring him back, repeat, bring him back, repeat.

I wonder, for only a second, how long time has passed in the real world. I wonder how my body is withholding the bastard’s final attack.

It’s not a long thought, for I am quickly distracted with caving in his chest. I feel around for his heart, and when I find it, I smile again.

...

“Sasuke?”

The only thing that could coax me away from the cavity in Toneri’s stomach, I suppose, is Hinata. I look up before my conscience even recognizes her voice, and I stare at her blankly, first, then like a child caught doing something they shouldn’t. My first instinct is to hide the bastard’s crumbling body, sliding one leg in front of his wheezing, deflated chest. It’s not a sight I ever want her to see, despite the pleasure it gives me. I admire how right she looks in The Archive — a subtle feeling that drastically clashes with other such thoughts of rage and disgust. Only then, as I see her hover close to my chair, eyes trapped to mine, do I remember that she should not be here.

“Hinata,” I say, low, “why are you here?”

She shouldn’t be. This is a reality of my making; a creation of my mangekyo. It’s difficult to break or manipulate regular genjutsu. It should be impossible to do anything against the genjutsu of my mangekyo.

And yet, here she is.

The veins around her dōjutsu stand out more than usual. Her skin is like ash, faded and colorless. I’m startled, for a moment, to see the byakugan returned to her eyes. But time here is different from what it is in reality. Seconds could have passed, or even years.

She does not look as though she has lived through years without me.

Hinata looks exactly as she had before: terrified, with hard-cut hands that do not match her round face.

When her gaze finally leaves me, she examines The Archive. She touches the back of my chair carefully, as if she expects her hand to go through it.

“We . . . but we . . . .”

“It’s genjutsu,” I say, then frown. She’s changing the subject. “Hinata. Why are you here?”

Another lagging wheeze from Toneri catches Hinata’s attention. Before she can catch a better look of him, I move my whole body in front of him, irked. Can’t the bastard shut up and die quietly? Moments ago — or maybe hours ago — years ago — I had enjoyed every pathetic noise I could force out of him. It’s strange, I suppose. Everything changes when Hinata is around.

“It’s been two days,” she says, after a moment. “You haven’t moved. They want to move you, but —”

“Who?” I ask.

“H-Hokage-sama, u-um, and Haruno-san. They have come — I mean, they’re here.” She looks around again, sees nothing familiar about where she had just been, and curls her hands together nervously. “Not here. I-I don’t . . . Sasuke, why are we at The Archive?”

An impossible thing to answer because, truthfully, I hardly know myself.

Instead, I tell her that she’s going to worry herself into a fit, and I instruct her as gently as I can to go through the motions. Outstretched arms, chakra from one end to the other. In, out. In, out. She follows instructions like she always does, and when she seems well enough to not panic, I motion her closer. I grab her hand when she comes up to me, and a sink into the texture, the realness of it. She’s not fake — not something my subconscious created to torture me more in my own genjutsu. She’s real — and somehow, she’s here.

I feel a light tap against the side of my wrist. It’s wet and warm, and I see the wobbly streak left behind on her face.

“Y-You’re alive,” she breathes out.

Is my body ruined in the real world? She said I was not moving. Does that mean I am dead? Is the last piece of me here, destroying the last pieces of mind and sanity this bastard has? I feel the panic swell into her again, so I squeeze her hand and try to find a way to distract her.

“Kakashi and Sakura have come?”

She nods.

“You have your eyes,” I say.

“Hokage-sama helped me. He . . . h-he said he knew how.”

“And the byakugan has allowed you into my genjutsu?” I use my sleeve to swipe at that crystal trail down the side of her face. “Smart girl. Never let yourself hate your eyes again.”

Hinata tries to smile, but it’s muddled and tense.

“They wanted me to come. They said . . . that you have to come out. Haruno-san has been trying to heal you, but she can only do so much away from the hospital.” I imagine so. If Hinata’s right and two days have passed since I first trapped Toneri here, then Sakura must be close to exhaustion by now. Part of me hates the idea that someone is willing to push themselves to such a state for my sake. Another part of me is grateful beyond words. “You’re hurt, Sasuke. Y-You can barely breathe. You don’t feel it here?”

“I feel nothing, Hinata.”

Her hand shifts, suddenly wrapping around mine, as if to comfort me. If it were my real hand, I would feel her warmth, the slight thump of her heartbeat, the twitching of muscles just beneath her skin. I would feel the course of life running through her, and I suddenly starve for it. My mind begs for it, and the corners of the genjutsu flicker.

“They want to move you,” Hinata continues quietly, “but they do not know if it’s dangerous to move you when you are within your own — your own, um . . . .”

“Genjutsu,” I supply.

“S-So they want you to wake up.” Her grip tightens around, less comforting and more terrified. “B-But — Sasuke — if you feel nothing here, then I — then I-I don’t know if you should.”

I don’t even feel the tremble of her hand, merely the weight of it. But everything about her shakes, and I look away and blow out my nerves and take in what she’s suggesting. I will die if I stay here. It’s likely I will die if I pull away from this genjutsu, but if I remain in this figmented reality and keep them from safely moving them, then Sakura will soon collapse, and my body will soon perish.

And I’ve known this the whole time. Since the beginning. Since Toneri’s attack tore through my system as chakra roared through my eyes, I’ve known, consciously or not, that if I stayed in this genjutsu for too long, I was as good as dead.

In fact, I probably welcomed it.

That is why, perhaps, I am here, in The Archive. Perhaps that is why my subconscious has chosen this location.

I wanted to die in this sanctuary: my closest spot to privacy, to peace, to Hinata.

She does not understand everything, but she knows that dying here will be my only chance of a peaceful death. That is why she holds my hand like she wants to keep me here, like she will stop me if I try to leave.

“I . . . I can . . . I-I’ll stay here,” she says, clenching her jaw when the wobble of her tone reveals her submerged anguish. “I’ll stay here, Sasuke.”

The thought strikes me hard, and I pull my hand away from her.

“I won’t let you watch me die, Hinata,” I mutter.

“I — but I — don’t make me leave.” She reaches for me again, and when I retreat back, I step too far away and leave Toneri’s broken form in full view. She cries out, horrified. She sees the hole in his stomach, the bits of rib, the empty sockets. I press into her, pushing her away from him. By the time I get her to sit in my chair, she’s a mess of nerves and panicked, swallowing breaths. Shit. Fuck! “Don’t — don’t — I don’t want to go back! I-I don’t want to see you like that — is that — was that Tone—”

“Forget it.” My hand clamps onto her shoulder. “Leave, Hinata.”

She yanks at my sleeves, then needles her fingers into the cushion of the chair. Her teeth dig into any flesh they can find: her mouth, the inside of her cheek, the faded pink of her tongue. Her legs are flaring, as if uncontrolled, and I find her on the brink of a panic attack.

“You’re dying!” she sobs. “Oh Gods, Sasuke, you’re dying!”

“Hinata,” I beg, “leave!”

She won’t. Even if she wanted to, I don’t think she knows how.

She’s trapped here. I’ve trapped her.

This isn’t right. She shouldn’t be here. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

I feel my chakra zapping through me. I feel the sting of my mangekyo, the burning whirl of tomoe. The Archive shatters, falls apart, spins out of this plane as reality swirls around us. My body suddenly feels frigid and stiff. Everything tangles together. I lose my footing. Hinata whips away, and then I feel a searing dagger in my back and fire in my throat and the dull pains of an exhausted dōjutsu sputtering out. I smell Sakura’s clinical chakra. I feel Kakashi’s hand on the back of my neck.

Moon dust. Dim shapes.

My mangekyo dies, red fizzles out, and silver glows upon the face below me. Hinata snaps awake, and the last thing I see — that I remember seeing — is the haunting realization that we’ve both woken up flashing across her eyes.

...

When I feel the workings of my brain piece together my consciousness, I know a miracle has happened.

Death is something I’m acquainted with; tied to, in some cases. Death has followed me, has trailed me, has blotched my life for a long time, and yet I do not know the basics of it. I know the lack of life that is death: the leaving shine in a corpse’s eye, or the cooling stiffness of a body. The decay that comes after. But I do not know the intricacies beyond the last moments of a dying life.

I thought I would.

But I’m becoming aware of myself, and I do not believe a dead corpse can obtain such a feat.

So, by some miracle, I have survived.

Not without consequence, I remind myself. Perhaps the overuse of my dōjutsu has made me blind, or somewhere in the tricky way back from the moon I’ve lost a leg or my other arm. Perhaps Toneri’s final attack has damaged my spine enough to where I may never be able to walk again.

Ah. I really am alive. I can’t even allow myself a single second to be grateful.

...

I have long since grown tired of hospital rooms, I realize. Long before my return to Konoha, before the many injuries I sustained as a genin; I grew tired of them after the death of my clan, after the countless visitories and pitying nurses and friendly-faced consultant that tried to get a word out of my mute, devastated form. I hate this place. I couldn’t stand them in the rare occurrences that Naruto or Sakura would be injured enough to stay a few days. I all but broke down inwardly when I had come just weeks ago after Hinata’s fracture. Now, beyond all belief, I find myself in the tightly wound sheets of a hospital bed, and I feel more miserable than I have in a long while.

Damn them, I think. Damn that Hokage, and damn Sakura. It would have done them good to just take me home — or to let me waste away. I would have much preferred that. The long stretch of unconsciousness I was in, plus whatever drugs are being pumped into my body currently, have left my senses in a tangle. My smell is flooded with starch bedding and chemical tile cleaner, and the lights burn the edges of my vision when I try to make out my surroundings. I barely manage to sit up when a nurse walks in and nearly drops her plastic clipboard at the sight of me.

“Uchiha-san,” she breathes out.

I don’t recognize her, though (admittedly) I never tried to be friendly with any of the medic-nin or nurses here. Something sways about the room, and I think I feel the planet’s slow rotation. My jaw clenches as I sneer, “Bring Sakura here, and tell her if she does not come within five minutes, I’m leaving on my own accord.”

“Uchiha-san,” the firm tone the nurse tries to control fizzles out at my glare, “you . . . you aren’t allowed to simply leave —”

“Four minutes.”

She bristles, shuffles, then gives a cautious glance past me before heading on her way. I take a moment to examine the IV plugged into my arm and the stiffy, sticky thing wrapped around my lower torso. A cast, I think. I vaguely recall the hit Toneri got on me and wondered how severely I was injured. Whatever drug that had me on only made my back thrum with a dull, distant pain, but once they started to edge me off of it, I’m sure I’ll know the extent of the injury.

Then, after finding I still had my right arm in tact and both legs (though, suspiciously, both feet felt numb and cold), I finally turned my head to where the nurse had glanced before leaving — and my heart must have stopped for a moment, for the machine connected to it pauses in its rhythmic, steady beeping for half a second.

There’s a square, colorless chair in the corner between my bed and a long window overlooking the village, and there sits Hinata, staring at me quietly. She is wired up, as well, with an IV and a small machine recording her heartbeat attached to a rolling stand that hovers next to her seat. The sight of her makes a sharp pain creep up through my spine, as if the medicine has suddenly worn off.

Her face looks hollow.

The same girl who used to have a face as readable as the books she so dearly loves now looks blank — and worse yet, it’s that expression that she fixes onto me.

“Hinata,” I say, hoping to break her out of the trance, but it’s no good. The cast (whatever it is) that’s around my torso prevents me from moving more than a couple centimeters, so I am unable to reach over, to touch her, to shake her from her spell. And it has to be a spell. Surely, she’s stuck in a daydream — something pleasant and far away from the blandness of this hospital room. I try again. “Hinata. Are you hurt?”

She blinks, then unconsciously scratches at the top of her right hand, where her IV is inserted into her vein. Something isn’t right, but I can’t find the source. The beeping machine next to me rises with my annoyance and emerging panic, and just then, Sakura enters with the tail of her white lab coat snapping behind her. At the sight of her, I quickly regret forcing her to come. The green of her eyes are swampish and dark, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in a while. Still, her eyes diligently check my charts and machines before she turns her focus to me.

“You scared the poor girl,” she sighs. At first, I think she means Hinata, and I snap back to her. “Stupid of you to think you can leave, Sasuke. I’d like to see you try. I bet you couldn’t even make it out of your bed without collapsing.”

I can’t walk? I wonder, for barely a second, if I have been damaged beyond repair — but the worry is hastily put to the side by another.

“Sakura,” I hiss, “what is wrong with her?”

Something seems to snap Hinata out of her trance, for she suddenly leaps to her feet, pale and owl-eyed. The tremble of her body rocks her to the point of unbalance, and she falls back into the wall as she looks around, desperate and scared, as if expecting something to leap out at any moment. Is there danger? Does she feel something? Sakura hurries over to the other side of the room, where she holds out her hands in a reassuring manner.

“Hinata-san, it’s okay,” she whispers. “It’s not a genjutsu. Remember what I told you? Use your byakugan, and you’ll see.”

Clutching her stand, Hinata huddles away, curls up, then finally activates her dōjutsu. The veins rising around her eyes, squeezes my stomach, and when she looks around, she sees no traces of genjutsu and, at last, relaxes. Sakura dives in and catches her before Hinata can collapse on the floor. There’s another pop of pain as I flinch, tense up, and try to move. Upon Sakura’s glare, I force myself to settle back, and she gently leads Hinata back to her chair before pushing her close to the side of my bed. Hinata’s eyes are red and crystalized with relief, and both of her hands hold mine. The warmth I feel from her palms is just enough to calm my static nerves.

“See?” Sakura says, smiling. “I told you he’d be fine. This idiot never knows when to quit.”

Her words are confident, but when Sakura touches my shoulder, there is a tender tremble in her fingers that reveals her fright. She had been deathly terrified, barely able to keep the cool facade of a medic-nin. A strength that awes me and sickens me at the same time, and I feel overwhelmed at the revelation. I remember the weeks after my family’s massacre — the thousands of people I didn’t know who surrounded me, filled up the air I needed to breathe until there was nothing left but the heat of bodies and the pitying eyes of strangers.

It’s because of the place, I remind myself. A hospital room is nothing but a haunting memory. I swallow, let her hand stay, and try to hide my relief when it finally leaves my shoulder.

“How long?” I manage to ask.

“Three days. Almost four.”

I feel Hinata’s thumb individually circle my knuckles and look down at her. Her face is bent so close to my hand. I wonder if she’s observing it — watching how blood and chakra freely moves through veins and channels. A sign of life.

“Hinata,” I say, but she does not respond. I turn back to Sakura. “Why is she here?”

“Minor injuries plus the fracture that is still healing —”

“In my room, I mean.”

At that, Sakura hesitates, which can only mean bad news. Worse than bad, in fact. A trained medic-nin has gone through countless experiences of relaying awful news to families and patients, so her hesitation can only mean one of the few things I do not want to hear.

“Later,” she says, after a while. My face must have changed into something alarmed, for she quickly adds, “She’s fine, Sasuke. Healthy and almost completely healed.” Another pause. She shifts. “Physically, I mean.”

Any relief she may have tried to give me is dashed away. I pull my hand from Hinata and put it to her jaw, lifting her face to me.

“Hinata,” I say, voice croaked and unsure, “talk to me. Tell me you’re alright.”

And she does not talk, only smiles awkwardly before fitting her arms gently around me in a hug. I feel frozen in the embrace. It might as well be my younger self’s thin, child arms around me, barely touching me, giving no power to the embrace. A weak facade. I hadn’t spoken for almost two months after I was released from the hospital. Itachi had stolen my vocal cords — or, perhaps, they had been burned by the awakening of my sharingan. And when my mind cleared just enough to process words once more, they were angry, rage-fueled words. They were wasps and hornets, stinging and mean. But when I was a silent husk, I had no barrier from the village and their sympathies. Elders would hug me and cry, and I would hug back because Mother would have said it was rude to not accept embraces from well-meaning people. I would put my arms around them and count the seconds until I could appropriately pull away and leave and get away from the lot; sometimes, they would hold me longer, squeeze me into their frame. I’d grow nauseous. I wouldn’t be able to eat in these circumstances, and I’d go to bed hungry and unable to keep anything down.

And now it’s happening to Hinata.

Fuck, now it’s happening to her.

The machine stops beeping for one second — two. Sakura stiffens and checks my pulse, and Hinata goes back to tracing the lines in my worn and wary palm.

...

A new nurse comes at evening with a wheeled cart. She’s older, roots turning silver, and she seems to know Hinata well enough, for she comes to put a napkin on her lap before bringing around the trays of food.

“There you are,” she says, kindly, setting the tray down. Steam comes from the rice and foggy soups and porridge. “There’s that pretty smile. Starting to feel like yourself, are you?”

She sets out my food, next, and then sets out to check my chart before producing another — Hinata’s, I gather. I cannot imagine why it would be here and not in her own room, wherever it is. Then the nurse tells us she’ll be back in half an hour to take the plates and trays away and leaves us in silence.

I watch, for a while, as Hinata eats, glad that she can at least do that much. I don’t allow my hopes to rise one centimeter. People process differently. I couldn’t eat for days, and there may be something hidden from sight that Hinata may struggle to do. She stops to stare at me, and I eat with her, not feeling my appetite but worried that my lack of eating will force her to follow my lead. The warm broth brings some color to her face, and when we are finished, she goes back to interlocking her fingers with mine. Fatigue is layering in her eyes, and I bend my neck to find her eye.

“Go rest,” I tell her. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A slight frown mars her mouth. She grips me tighter, and I don’t try again. I let her assure herself, again and again, that I am alive and nothing about this is fake. When her byakugan flashes awake every now and then, I say nothing about it. When the nurse returns, she does a final check, puts the trays away, and turns off the overhead lights so that only the wall lamps are on. She fixes the the curtains to only reveal a sliver of the dark village beyond the pane, and then she returns to Hinata’s side and asks if she needs a stop at the restroom or anything at all.

Hinata’s hand irons around my arm. That is her answer, so the nurse fetches a quilt and lays it over Hinata’s shoulder, and I watch the film-like eyes dim and finally shut as she rests her head near my lap, upper body turned onto my mattress. It looks horribly uncomfortable, but I have no mind to move her.

“She won’t go to her room?” I ask the nurse quietly.

She tries to hide the sad spark coming to her eyes, pretending to mess with her lashes by the door. “We can’t get her to stay,” she admits, finally. “We had to cuff her, once, and she nearly broke something trying to escape. She won’t leave you alone. Well — I’m sure she’s terrified you’ll be attacked.”

And if I were? If enemy nin decided to attack me now, how would she defend me? I imagine her guarding me against trained, cold-hearted shinobi, and I feel a chill collect at the base of my neck. She’d get herself killed. I try not to think about it, but it stays with me deep into the night. I hear nurses go into other rooms, slowly putting their patients to sleep one after the other. The wall lamps flicker off, and in the glow of the machines, I find the marks of cuffs on Hinata’s wrists and try to rub them out of her skin.

...

Kakashi comes the next morning, just after dawn. Every new face that enters this room seems tired and weary, and I’m beginning to get annoyed at the sight. He comes in his robes, though his hat is notably absent, and the friendly nurse from last night comes, as well, and helps Hinata to her feet. I don’t understand, for a moment, until a wheelchair is brought into the room, along with towels and thin slippers.

“You’re kidding,” I whisper.

Kakashi’s mask moves into a coy smile. “I can’t imagine you’re embarrassed. I’ve known you since you were twelve.”

Hinata’s eyes flicker between us, so I swallow any disputes I may have and let the man help me slowly get into the wheelchair. Feeling is beginning to come back to my legs, but it’s as if I have no way of controlling them and they have no way of holding my weight. I have no chance of standing alone, let alone walking, so Kakashi fits his arm around me and settles me into the wheelchair like he’s done it before — like he expects to do it again in the future.

He takes the handles, and we go down the hallway and turn towards the patient bathrooms. The nurse takes Hinata into one, and Kakashi wheels me into another.

“I’m sure,” I say, once we’re alone, “that someone else is available to do this for me.”

“Hinata-chan won’t have it,” Kakashi explains. “No strangers, and definitely not her clan. She’s convinced they’re out to kill you. Even her sister hasn’t had the chance to see her since we brought you both back. Only Sakura and I can be alone with you — or Naruto, but as you can imagine, she’s not exactly comfortable being around him just yet.”

I was only out for three days, and somehow, it seems like several weeks’ worth of events have happened since we were first brought back from the bastard’s lunar colony. Imagining Hinata fighting restraints and attacking unknown guests sets lava into my gut, and I sneer.

“The whole village isn’t out to get me.” Not in that way, at least. Not with murderous intent and enough ill-matched courage to try and attack me. I doubt there’s even a handful of people in this village 

Kakashi is quiet for a while, messing around the bathroom. He turns on the shower and checks the temperature and pressure of the water, and then he gathers soaps and shampoos into their respective spots before returning to me.

“If the roles were reversed,” he says softly, “ wouldn’t you act the same?”

No, I think to myself. If Hinata were in my shoes, I wouldn’t try to attack any unknown face coming even a meter in her direction.

They would already long be dead.

...

I think I’m on the precipice of dozing off when, suddenly, Hinata’s on top of me. Not in the way I’m used to when it comes to her. Not in that embracing manner that seems to melt away the world. Instead, she sort of rapidly gets on top of me like the roof is about to concave and the only shield between me and the falling cement is her small body. Her fingers dig into the sheets of the bed as she tries to cover as much of me as she can. Instantly, any lag in my mind evaporates. My arm circles her shoulders as I bring her face to my neck, and I look around for anything that could have startled her.

“What?” I ask sharply. “What is it?”

I only see the dark room of the hospital, the sliver of village lights between curtains. I check and re-check, annoyed with my lack of findings despite the clear tension in Hinata’s body. It takes a long pause for my arm to relax around her and let her ease up, face flashing in a way I can’t comprehend. I’m becoming aware of the pain lodging through my lower back due to her sudden weight on me, and when she shifts, I strain and lock my jaw in place.

Hinata notices, realizes, and stills in horror. She doesn’t move, instead settling her weight into her knees on either side of me. I pray quietly that no nurse has the mind to check on us tonight; while the position isn’t exactly appropriate, I’m more concerned that they’ll try to force Hinata into her room.

She’s breathing quickly. The ending stretch of fear is still lit in her eyes.

I check a final time for any danger, and then frown at her.

“What has scared you?” I ask.

She’s careful in peeling off of me, moving her right leg over me and setting her foot on the floor before removing the other from my bed. I watch her jump across the room, first tearing back then curtains before checking the hallway outside of our door. She peers beneath my bed and feels around the walls, as if expecting someone to be hiding in the shadows, ready to strike. Nothing is there, of course. There is no danger at all, and I can’t understand what has got her believing so adamantly that there is.

Eventually, she tires herself and comes back to my side, where she sits on her boxish chair and holds my hand in both of hers and, for the rest of the night, refuses to let go.

Neither of us sleep. We stare through the darkness, too caught up in ourselves. I don’t try to talk. I hate the idea of saying something and not hearing anything in return.

...

“You won’t tell me?” I ask after the morning-shift nurse drops off breakfast at exactly eight the next morning.

Hinata swirls her spoon around her soup, more concerned with the whirlpool she’s creating rather than my question. I touch the side of her cheek to get her attention, and she finally looks at me. There’s color to her face again, subtly pink and a little sheepish.

“You don’t have to talk to me,” I say, after a while, “but I need to know what scared you.”

Hinata sits and waits for me to eat. She won’t start without me. If I don’t eat, she starves herself, so I force myself to go from one dish to the other. I picture the events of last night, going through every visual memory with cutting analysis. She had been asleep just fine minutes ago, the crown of her head nested against my right thigh. I had been enjoying the tranquility of her expression. Our days have been cold-faced and exhausting, where she never relaxed — always alert, like a shinobi should be. Only she’s not one. She doesn’t have a drop of it in her blood. Only when she sleeps does she seem at peace, so I had stared for it a long while as my tired eyes began to close. I listened to her light breathing. An odd lullaby that drifted me off into the beginning stages of sleep — and that is when she stirred, pounced, and covered me like my life was on the line.

“A nightmare,” I realize just then, and Hinata’s straying gaze proves my guess correct.

She had a nightmare. The kind so vivid that she had convinced herself it was real. Was it about Toneri? Did she think he was back for vengeance? Or, perhaps, she dreamt of her family coming and dragging her away from me.

I used to be plagued with the very things. Nightmares of my parents, of the blood staining the floorboards.

Sometimes, I still dream of them. Not often, but sometimes.

It’s the sort of thing that one can not simply heal easily from. I think I will grow with those memories, those night terrors.

Hinata will too. She shouldn’t have to, but she will. She will grow old and silver and still be tattooed by them — about my stiff form over her, dojutsus glowing as I tortured Toneri over and over again in my own genjutsu.

This damn room is not helping, that is for sure. Not with the constant movement and the open windows that anyone, if they wanted, could break through. Not with strangers roaming the halls just beyond our door. Not in a place so public and in the center of everything. Of course she would be paranoid. Of course she would imagine awful things the moment her eyes shut.

When the nurse comes again to retrieve the trays, I tell her to bring Sakura when she has free time.

Uchiha Sasuke, as everyone knows, does not do well with staying in place without causing a little havoc.