[Naruto] The Return 2/5
Title: The Return
Author: runespoor7
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the middle of a war the usual thing is that people die. It's more unusual when they return alive after having been thought dead for three months. Hinata, after being a prisoner in Sound, does.
Notes: in this part: Tsunade, Ibiki, politics, life during a war.
Part I
II.
It wasn't a stir that told Tsunade that the girl was waking up, but a slight flare in her chakra - the instinctive reaction when one came to. She signaled Ibiki with a glance, and the man came closer, towering above the still body.
Tsunade had worked hard to restore the normal flow of the chakra in the girl's pathways. Orochimaru must have given specific orders to have her body in decent physical condition, or else Kabuto liked to work on a blank canvas, starting anew every day or so, because she sported no scars or signs of lasting harm other than a rampant malnutrition. She'd been healed, very often, Tsunade could tell, because every healing technique had left vestiges in the girl's chakra patterns, and it was so cleverly done that without those leftover imprints, she would never have guessed. Kabuto, Tsunade acknowledged, was a remarkable medic-nin.
Under normal conditions, the flux of the chakra would slowly erode those traces until they were almost completely faded, but since her chakra had been sealed so she couldn't use it, the marks stood sharp and clear. Actually, it wasn't so much that there were marks that her chakra looked like an abstract mosaic which had been smashed in a thousand pieces.
The Hokage hoped that the girl's mind and loyalty hadn't given in the way the rest of her had, and regretted that the questioning she needed to be submitted to would trample on whatever remnants of - sense or whatever - she might still possess.
The Sannin part of her felt a sort of queasy curiosity for what she had lived through for the past thirteen weeks, and Tsunade had to keep a firm rein on her 'genius medic-nin' voice, which was currently whispering her fascination and trepidation and professional envy for what Orochimaru and Kabuto may have discovered and achieved during that time. The last time Tsunade could recall having this reaction had been when she'd learnt the circumstances which had led Orochimaru to leave Konoha.
Neither Tsunade nor Ibiki tried to disguise their presence - as if the girl could even feel chakra signatures with the state her own chakra was in - but they were breathing silently, mostly out of habit. They were standing on opposite sides of the girl, waiting for her to reach a decision on what to do. Even if she remembered her fainting in the forest and realized that she was instead lying on a bed, and even if she attacked, she wouldn't be able to land a hit before one or both of them could stop her.
It didn't take more than three seconds for her to reveal she wasn't sleeping. Apparently she must've thought there was no point in pretending; and this, Tsunade thought, already told them that she wasn't undamaged. The girl Tsunade had known, for all her submissive patterns, wouldn't have been one to forfeit as long as she wasn't out cold.
Her eyes squinted and fluttered open.
"Kabuto…" Her voice was a bit hoarse, and Tsunade could pinpoint the exact moment her eyes came into focus by the way she added, "…'s glasses?"
It was an impressive show of self-control and adaptability, but it would have fooled no-one, except maybe Naruto. The first word had been a distinct call. The familiarity of it sent a small chill down Tsunade's spine.
"On the bedside table," Tsunade answered.
The girl glanced at the table, twisting to face it, reaching over to touch them. She ran a finger on the frame in a way that mixed wonder and longing, then settled back into a lying position, as if the small move had exhausted her. She wasn't trying to hide her peaceful smile as she greeted them.
"Hokage-sama," Hinata said softly. "Ibiki-san."
She seemed to have admitted she wasn't under a genjutsu, which was good news. There's not much you can do to help somebody back to sanity if they insist that what they're living is not real, and Konoha's expert in desperate cases - the brat himself - was too occupied dealing with the most desperate of all cases to be bothered to remember that his village might actually need him in a more useful capacity.
Then a tiny frown appeared between Hinata's eyebrows.
"Near the village - it wasn't Shikamaru-san, was it? The scars - it was Nara-san?"
Waiting for the part of Hinata's confusion that would explain her reaction away, Tsunade nodded.
"Is Shikamaru-san dead?" Hinata's eyes were slightly too wide; it was the only thing that betrayed her tension. The rest of her was all candid determination to obtain an answer.
"…No, he's not," Tsunade slowly said.
Hinata's eyelids closed for a moment.
"And Kiba-kun isn't dead either, is he. And neither are Ino-san and Chouji-san, and Gai-sensei, and Lee-san, and Gaara of the Sand," Hinata recited. There was something deeply unsettling about the way hope and disillusionment blended together in her tone.
Suddenly her eyes snapped open; her entire body was so taut it was almost trembling, and in the panic displayed on Hinata's face Tsunade could see real shadows.
"Neji - Neji-niisan, and Naruto-k-kun, a-are they…"
Tsunade grabbed the girl's hand, keeping her patient from hyperventilating.
"They are alive."
Hinata's eyes flickered to the bedside table with something that might be guilt or might be something else entirely.
Tsunade and Ibiki's eyes met above the girl.
"Why did you believe that?" Ibiki's usually gruff voice had assumed a soft tone, trying to make her trust them, make her want to talk. Even if village security demanded better reassurance, it might give Hinata time to get her used to her surroundings.
Tsunade disliked torture as a rule and despised the idea of breaking through one of her own Leaf citizens. Because it was Orochimaru they were fighting against, though, she had no choice. It was Orochimaru's fault that she had to, and since Orochimaru had been her teammate, her friend once, since he'd been her responsibility, Orochimaru was her fault. It made her twice responsible for the girl looking up at them, head cocked to the side with a slight smile, as if she was hearing something they hadn't said.
"He told me who died but he never told me Neji-niisan and Naruto-kun were killed." She smiled ruefully. "He knew I wouldn't have believed him if he told me that."
"He?" Ibiki prodded.
"Yes; Kabuto." She sounded perfectly poised. She must have sensed something in the pause after she spoke, because she went on. "Oh - I didn't believe him. Believing him made things easy. Like a cage. …But… Not believing him… it didn't make sense."
Ibiki leaned until he was five inches away from Hinata's ear. Tsunade doubted the girl was aware of it; she spoke like she was focused on something inside her. Those were just things that needed to get off her chest if they wanted to go anywhere with this. And probably, they'd learn more about the way she'd related with Kabuto, and he seemed to have been the prominent presence in her life as a prisoner.
"Why wouldn't it make sense?"
A slow, derisive smile curved Hinata's lips. "There was only him."
Something in the way she said it, that something made Tsunade want to close her eyes and to protest. No, no, really, Hinata was too perceptive for this. It didn't help a lot that every medic-nin knew that anyone, winding up in such a situation, could come to feel strongly about their torturer, no matter the feeling.
Tsunade took a breath, and found herself hoping that at least Hinata'd been spared some things. "When you say there was only him, what do you mean?"
The blank Hyuuga look - the one which Neji had perfected as if it was a S-rank jutsu - was turned on her. Then the illusion was broken and it was once more Hinata who was smiling.
"Kabuto kept me alive." The smile was too distant. "Now I've killed him."
Ibiki sent Tsunade a look that meant he'd had the same idea and he didn't think it mattered. Hinata was strangely sibylline, and the more they beat around the bush the less she seemed to make sense; they were going to have to start pressing, or they could do what duty demanded they do and make sure she wasn't a spy of Orochimaru's, and later worry about putting her back together.
Hinata's face turned slightly toward the bedside table again.
"…Maybe you could start now, Ibiki-san," she suggested, without tearing her gaze away from the glasses. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
By that moment, Tsunade had guessed that they'd probably need to conjure a genjutsu or a henge to impersonate Kabuto at some point, and she'd already been thoroughly revolted by the perspective.
Now what she wanted more than anything was to ask him - the real Kabuto - the one whom Hinata apparently believed she had killed - what he had done to make her give her permission to the people who were going to interrogate her. She could already imagine what he had done to make her know when she was going to be tortured.
Part III
Author: runespoor7
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the middle of a war the usual thing is that people die. It's more unusual when they return alive after having been thought dead for three months. Hinata, after being a prisoner in Sound, does.
Notes: in this part: Tsunade, Ibiki, politics, life during a war.
Part I
II.
It wasn't a stir that told Tsunade that the girl was waking up, but a slight flare in her chakra - the instinctive reaction when one came to. She signaled Ibiki with a glance, and the man came closer, towering above the still body.
Tsunade had worked hard to restore the normal flow of the chakra in the girl's pathways. Orochimaru must have given specific orders to have her body in decent physical condition, or else Kabuto liked to work on a blank canvas, starting anew every day or so, because she sported no scars or signs of lasting harm other than a rampant malnutrition. She'd been healed, very often, Tsunade could tell, because every healing technique had left vestiges in the girl's chakra patterns, and it was so cleverly done that without those leftover imprints, she would never have guessed. Kabuto, Tsunade acknowledged, was a remarkable medic-nin.
Under normal conditions, the flux of the chakra would slowly erode those traces until they were almost completely faded, but since her chakra had been sealed so she couldn't use it, the marks stood sharp and clear. Actually, it wasn't so much that there were marks that her chakra looked like an abstract mosaic which had been smashed in a thousand pieces.
The Hokage hoped that the girl's mind and loyalty hadn't given in the way the rest of her had, and regretted that the questioning she needed to be submitted to would trample on whatever remnants of - sense or whatever - she might still possess.
The Sannin part of her felt a sort of queasy curiosity for what she had lived through for the past thirteen weeks, and Tsunade had to keep a firm rein on her 'genius medic-nin' voice, which was currently whispering her fascination and trepidation and professional envy for what Orochimaru and Kabuto may have discovered and achieved during that time. The last time Tsunade could recall having this reaction had been when she'd learnt the circumstances which had led Orochimaru to leave Konoha.
Neither Tsunade nor Ibiki tried to disguise their presence - as if the girl could even feel chakra signatures with the state her own chakra was in - but they were breathing silently, mostly out of habit. They were standing on opposite sides of the girl, waiting for her to reach a decision on what to do. Even if she remembered her fainting in the forest and realized that she was instead lying on a bed, and even if she attacked, she wouldn't be able to land a hit before one or both of them could stop her.
It didn't take more than three seconds for her to reveal she wasn't sleeping. Apparently she must've thought there was no point in pretending; and this, Tsunade thought, already told them that she wasn't undamaged. The girl Tsunade had known, for all her submissive patterns, wouldn't have been one to forfeit as long as she wasn't out cold.
Her eyes squinted and fluttered open.
"Kabuto…" Her voice was a bit hoarse, and Tsunade could pinpoint the exact moment her eyes came into focus by the way she added, "…'s glasses?"
It was an impressive show of self-control and adaptability, but it would have fooled no-one, except maybe Naruto. The first word had been a distinct call. The familiarity of it sent a small chill down Tsunade's spine.
"On the bedside table," Tsunade answered.
The girl glanced at the table, twisting to face it, reaching over to touch them. She ran a finger on the frame in a way that mixed wonder and longing, then settled back into a lying position, as if the small move had exhausted her. She wasn't trying to hide her peaceful smile as she greeted them.
"Hokage-sama," Hinata said softly. "Ibiki-san."
She seemed to have admitted she wasn't under a genjutsu, which was good news. There's not much you can do to help somebody back to sanity if they insist that what they're living is not real, and Konoha's expert in desperate cases - the brat himself - was too occupied dealing with the most desperate of all cases to be bothered to remember that his village might actually need him in a more useful capacity.
Then a tiny frown appeared between Hinata's eyebrows.
"Near the village - it wasn't Shikamaru-san, was it? The scars - it was Nara-san?"
Waiting for the part of Hinata's confusion that would explain her reaction away, Tsunade nodded.
"Is Shikamaru-san dead?" Hinata's eyes were slightly too wide; it was the only thing that betrayed her tension. The rest of her was all candid determination to obtain an answer.
"…No, he's not," Tsunade slowly said.
Hinata's eyelids closed for a moment.
"And Kiba-kun isn't dead either, is he. And neither are Ino-san and Chouji-san, and Gai-sensei, and Lee-san, and Gaara of the Sand," Hinata recited. There was something deeply unsettling about the way hope and disillusionment blended together in her tone.
Suddenly her eyes snapped open; her entire body was so taut it was almost trembling, and in the panic displayed on Hinata's face Tsunade could see real shadows.
"Neji - Neji-niisan, and Naruto-k-kun, a-are they…"
Tsunade grabbed the girl's hand, keeping her patient from hyperventilating.
"They are alive."
Hinata's eyes flickered to the bedside table with something that might be guilt or might be something else entirely.
Tsunade and Ibiki's eyes met above the girl.
"Why did you believe that?" Ibiki's usually gruff voice had assumed a soft tone, trying to make her trust them, make her want to talk. Even if village security demanded better reassurance, it might give Hinata time to get her used to her surroundings.
Tsunade disliked torture as a rule and despised the idea of breaking through one of her own Leaf citizens. Because it was Orochimaru they were fighting against, though, she had no choice. It was Orochimaru's fault that she had to, and since Orochimaru had been her teammate, her friend once, since he'd been her responsibility, Orochimaru was her fault. It made her twice responsible for the girl looking up at them, head cocked to the side with a slight smile, as if she was hearing something they hadn't said.
"He told me who died but he never told me Neji-niisan and Naruto-kun were killed." She smiled ruefully. "He knew I wouldn't have believed him if he told me that."
"He?" Ibiki prodded.
"Yes; Kabuto." She sounded perfectly poised. She must have sensed something in the pause after she spoke, because she went on. "Oh - I didn't believe him. Believing him made things easy. Like a cage. …But… Not believing him… it didn't make sense."
Ibiki leaned until he was five inches away from Hinata's ear. Tsunade doubted the girl was aware of it; she spoke like she was focused on something inside her. Those were just things that needed to get off her chest if they wanted to go anywhere with this. And probably, they'd learn more about the way she'd related with Kabuto, and he seemed to have been the prominent presence in her life as a prisoner.
"Why wouldn't it make sense?"
A slow, derisive smile curved Hinata's lips. "There was only him."
Something in the way she said it, that something made Tsunade want to close her eyes and to protest. No, no, really, Hinata was too perceptive for this. It didn't help a lot that every medic-nin knew that anyone, winding up in such a situation, could come to feel strongly about their torturer, no matter the feeling.
Tsunade took a breath, and found herself hoping that at least Hinata'd been spared some things. "When you say there was only him, what do you mean?"
The blank Hyuuga look - the one which Neji had perfected as if it was a S-rank jutsu - was turned on her. Then the illusion was broken and it was once more Hinata who was smiling.
"Kabuto kept me alive." The smile was too distant. "Now I've killed him."
Ibiki sent Tsunade a look that meant he'd had the same idea and he didn't think it mattered. Hinata was strangely sibylline, and the more they beat around the bush the less she seemed to make sense; they were going to have to start pressing, or they could do what duty demanded they do and make sure she wasn't a spy of Orochimaru's, and later worry about putting her back together.
Hinata's face turned slightly toward the bedside table again.
"…Maybe you could start now, Ibiki-san," she suggested, without tearing her gaze away from the glasses. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
By that moment, Tsunade had guessed that they'd probably need to conjure a genjutsu or a henge to impersonate Kabuto at some point, and she'd already been thoroughly revolted by the perspective.
Now what she wanted more than anything was to ask him - the real Kabuto - the one whom Hinata apparently believed she had killed - what he had done to make her give her permission to the people who were going to interrogate her. She could already imagine what he had done to make her know when she was going to be tortured.
Part III