Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

ⲃⳙⲧⲧⲉⲅ⳨ⳑⲩ	By : Sessakag Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female > Naruto/Hinata Views: 4852 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, just the story I write

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Chapter Seven
Lingering Shadows

May 13, 2016
-
“We should make a group,” Naruto suggested, pulling his phone from his pocket as they headed to sixth period,
She was too dulled to panic over this development, though she would have normally considering he’d ditched his friends again to walk beside her
“that way we can link up and work on the project over the weekend. We gotta present on Wednesday, but if we wait until Monday to put it together at study hall, we might not finish. It’s twenty percent of our grade, ya know, if I bomb it, I’ll be in deep shit in Saratobi-sense’s class.”
That explanation dragged her from her drug induced haze, though some of it got lost in the slow cogs of her cognition.
“A-another group?” she parroted, wondering what he meant by that.
Sarutobi-sensei had already put them in a group.
“Yeah, on LINE.”
“Online?” she questioned, “like the internet?”
Hinata didn’t really know much about technology or cyberspace, things like that were luxuries she hadn’t been given until she was rescued from her hellish life, in fact, she hadn’t gotten her first smart phone until Kurenai became her guardian. There were so many things about technology she didn’t know or understand, and that point was truly driven home when she was surrounded teenagers, adults even children who typed faster on their miniature devices than Hinata could on a full keyboard.
Embarrassed was too tame a word for what she felt about her inadequacy at her age, like she was a fraud trying to pretend she was normal, a farce that was always shattered when her inability to blend in with her peers was shoved under a spotlight.
Hinata was way behind in many ways, and some of it was her fault.
She was free now.
Free to do whatever she wanted, but…Hinata hadn’t really done anything.
Healing her wounds, physical and mental, took all her time and energy right after rescue, and even when the former was no longer a burden, she’d had no will, no desire, no motivation to anything other than sleep for as close to eternity as she possibly could. Depression had robbed her of any urge to discover all the new and exciting things her hateful family had kept from her, something she continued to have to pay for over and over again.
He glanced at her, holding up his phone for emphasis, “no I mean LINE, the phone app LINE.”
Hinata felt creeping heat touch her cheeks as he stared at her, expecting to find recognition on her face for the app.
Unfortunately…
She had no idea what that was.
He paused and she stopped too, watching his brows crease as he read the blankness on her face, “LINE,” he said again, as if she hadn’t heard him the first time, “seriously? You don’t have LINE?”
Humiliation was a bitter taste on tongue, and she ducked her head, shoulders hanging.
“I-Is that b-bad?” she asked, wringing her fingers a bit, no longer dulled out enough to ignore the subtle tingles of anxiety.
“Not bad but shit, I don’t know anybody that doesn’t use LINE,” he explained, “even my mom uses it, dattebayo,” he grinned down at her like a mischievous fox, unfurling a few of the worry knots in her stomach int the process, “I made dad get it too because I was mom’s only contact for a while, and she blew my phone up with stupid stickers and messages and videos and other bullshit. Now it’s dad’s problem.”
Hinata fumbled again, that fluttery tummy feeling blooming alongside a new knot of anxiety.
She realized he was sharing something humors with her, that the proper response was to smile along with him but…if Hinata had ever smiled once in her entire life, she couldn’t remember it anymore. She certainly didn’t feel herself capable of it again if she had.
The urge to smile was muted in her, though, for once, she wished she could at that moment.
“S-so it’s a m-m-mesenger app?” she asked instead.
“Yeah, but it does a little bit of everything, video chat, games, my parents even use it to keep track of doctor visits and medical records. We used it to order food sometimes when nobody wants to cook or we’re having a junk food Friday. Dad likes to use it to find local deals around town and I used it last year to find a summer job.”
“It s-s-sounds inc-c-credible,” she murmured, genuinely impressed.
And…so did his family.
Exactly what she imagined the happy looking families she watched from her attic window were like.
Warmth filled her chest.
She recognized it as a happy feeling, not because she had much experience with the emotion, but because she remembered, so vivid, from the day they met as two children wandering the woods for two vastly different reasons, when she felt it for the first time in her life as he fed her and smiled.
It was imprinted on her heart and she couldn’t help but be grateful that it was him, once again, to give that feeling to her, even if it was silly happiness that his life was filled with warmth and love at home.
That he had parents that didn’t hurt him, that didn’t treat him like he was everything wrong in their lives.
“That’s why I’m shocked you’ve never heard of it before,” he told her, though his smile took away any sting the words might have brought her, “its like the one stop shop for everything. You got your phone on you? I can download it for you.”
Hinata exhaled silently, reaching to dig into her bag for the phone she rarely ever used.
Thank goodness he offered to do it, she wouldn’t know how to go about setting that up even if he gave her step by step instructions.
She handed him her device, falling in step with him as he started moving again.
“You don’t have a lot of apps on here…” he murmured absently as he navigated her paltry apps to the app store, “and this looks like the default background wallpaper,” he gave her a curious glance, “this a new phone?”
She had the phone two maybe three months.
She wasn’t sure if that was considered ‘new’ but she nodded anyways.
It was new to her at least.
He accepted that with no question, turning his blue eyes back to her phone, mumbling as he typed on her digital keyboard, “I’m guessing you couldn’t back up your old phone and transfer it to this phone?”
She didn’t know what that meant…
“N-no I c-c-couldn’t.”
He sucked his teeth, the sound oddly sympathetic, “that sucks, having to start all over. New phones are a bitch to set up…want me to add some more apps on here for ya? I know some really good ones that don’t clog your phone up with useless bullshit.”
“Yes,” she answered quickly, relief flowing through her, “t-thank you…”
She didn’t care what he put on her phone if it would bring her closer to belonging.
To being normal.
“Don’t sweat it,” he returned, grinning down at her; his pearly whites, coaxing to life that constant flutter that stirred in her belly whenever he smiled his sunny smile.
-
Exhausted couldn’t begin to encompass the bone-deep weariness that slowed her limbs like cinder blocks, sapped her energy to less than nothing and strained the fabric of her mental strength to threadbare thin. School ended ten minutes ago, and the moment she saw her guardian’s little white sedan in the carpool circle, Hinata made a beeline for it, moving as fast as her heavy limbs could carry her.
Hinata wasn’t confident enough to ride the train, yet another weakness setting her apart from her peers.
Too many people. Too much noise. Too many ways to get lost.
For a girl that spent most of her whole life between four corners in a cramped attic, the world around her often felt too big, too fast, too foreign to truly understand.
So, Kurenai dropped her off in the morning and picked her up in the afternoon.
Like a young child that couldn’t be trusted to make their own way home.
Hinata settled in the back seat, strapped in and closed her eyes, whispering a fatigued greeting to her guardian. Kurenai responded in kind, before falling into silence the whole entire ride home as she always was, giving Hinata time to decompress rather than adding to the girl’s overstimulated senses with idle conversation.
Hinata was grateful for the concession.
Though her mind did briefly touch on a comparison of decompressing with Naruto’s ceaseless chatter and Kurenai’s well intentioned questions and non-threatening conversation, she was too tired to try and investigate why she could tolerate the former but not the latter.
There were too many things on her mind already for her to want to add anything new.
“Why don’t you lie down for a bit, honey,” Kurenai encouraged as the entered their two bedroom home, “dinner is a while off and you look tired.”
Grateful, Hinata nodded and headed to her bedroom, knowing over dinner, Kurenai would ask if she’d had an episode at school, how she’d handled it, how she was fairing now. Hinata didn’t want to talk about it, she never truly did, but to ease Kurenai’s mind…to avoid being seen as someone troublesome, she’d talk.
But…
She needed energy to handle that conversation, and right now, she was drained.
She dropped her bag on her bed, only for it to promptly tip over.
Her phone slid from the bag.
She reached for it, curiosity briefly poking through her exhaustion.
She hadn’t gotten a chance to look at the apps Naruto put on her phone, or ask him what any of them were for. Swiping up to remove her screensaver, Hinata looked over the unfamiliar apps, hesitant to touch any of them. The only application she knew how to use was call and text, though she was so slow texting she was better off calling the few people in her contacts.
But…
She should try and learn how to use these right?
She couldn’t be scared of everything, no one was looking over her shoulder, no one would come after her if she made a mistake-
A soft knock on the door startled her.
She jumped, clasping her phone between her hands in desperate bid to keep it from falling to the floor.
“Y-yes,” she called out, heart thudding against her ribcage.
A combination of her irrational fear that someone had come to punish her in advance of an impending mistake, and her very real fear of breaking her phone, something she had been given, was probably very expensive and could land her in a heap of trouble she was convinced she’d one day find herself in since the very day Kurenai took her in, sending her pulse racing…Kurenai said it was okay if she made mistakes, that it wasn’t a big deal, that she didn’t have to walk on eggshells and stress over stepping over some invisible line Kurenai had never drawn.
Despite her best efforts, Hinata wasn’t convinced.
Letting go of nearly two decades of abusive conditioning was far easier said than done.
She just…felt better, safer, keeping her guard up.
At least for now.
“Sorry to disturb you honey, I know you wanted to rest but…” came Kurenai’s response, slight muffled by the door, “can I come in?”
The question was a little less disconcerting than it was months ago, though Hinata couldn’t help but cringe a bit inside. This was Kurenai’s house, not hers and it felt a bit wrong that her guardian had to knock and ask permission to enter a room that essentially, belonged to her.
What right did Hinata have to privacy in someone else’s home?
At least…that’s what father used to say.
The door opened, and Kurenai entered.
Hinata expected her normal, serene guardian, instead, she saw something on the older woman’s face she hadn’t seen in weeks, something she was trying, but failing to hide.
Worry.
Genuine worry.
Like a sponge to water, Hinata soaked up the tension.
Stomach tightening, mouth drying, string of anxiety wrapping themselves around her throat.
“Can you come down stairs for a minute?” Kurenai asked, “we have a visitor.”
She didn’t want to…
Gods truth she didn’t want to.
She knew who was down there even if Kurenai purposely left them unnamed.
Hinata stood and followed her guardian, her movements wooden, nearly robotic, every delicate muscle in her body taunt and stiff. Her mind was a haze of terrified panic wrapped in a flimsy veil of numbness, teetering on the edge of what had to be madness. She quietly prayed Kurenai wouldn’t touch her right now, that she wouldn’t go beyond her current mother hen hovering.
Hinata knew she wouldn’t be able to handle the contact.
Not right now.
Not for hours after this ‘visit’ was over.
Panic bled through the veil, dragging her feet to a halt midway down the staircase. She stood frozen in place, knowing what was to come, that it was inevitable, and yet unable to stop herself from dragging her heels in a desperate bid to slow the arrival of yet another chapter in what seemed to be a never ending nightmare…
Careful not to touch her, but close enough to pierce her surreal bubble, Kurenai urged quietly, soothingly, “come, Hinata, come sit down, sweetheart. Ms. Nomura wants to speak with us.”
Hinata barely heard the words but her body reacted, carrying her down the last few steps.
Autopilot navigating her to the small, cozy living room where a sharply dressed, middle aged woman sat on the couch.
A woman Hinata was so, so grateful for…
A woman she always dreaded seeing the most.
Shizune Nomura.
A representative of the district attorney’s office, assistant district attorney of Tsunade Senju, and current prosecuting attorney representing the state in her father’s impending felony attempted murder criminal trial.
Though, it was only one case in a string of prosecutions.
In the chaotic, hours, days, weeks after Hinata’s near murder, authorities rounded up those responsible for the violence dished out to her that day and every incident of abuse before it.
Hiashi Hyuuga and several members of her family, relatives that participated in the abuse alongside extended family that hadn’t hurt her but knew of the abuse but did nothing to stop it, were facing a wide range of charges from misdemeanor to felony. A truly disturbing list of charges the public hasn’t seen in years, however, it was Hiashi’s final act of violence that overshadowed it all, that last explosion of rage that drew the media’s dogged coverage of the once well respected, obscenely wealthy businessman who came from old money and could trace his lineage back to several generations of obscenely wealthy Hyuugas’, tried and almost succeeded in killing his own daughter.
“Hello again, Miss. Hyuuga,” Shizune greeted her, standing out of courtesy, and giving a respectful bow, “I do apologize for interrupting your evening.”
Hinata swallowed, struggling to pry her lips apart and failing.
She returned the bow instead then sat, dropping a bit heavily, in an nearby armchair.
Hinata watched, heart pounding in her ears as Shizune retook her seat, smoothing lines from her pristine, sharply ironed pantsuit as she did.
Kurenai took a seat on the couch with Shizune, though she slid all the way to the end closer to Hinata, creating a huge gap between both women. Unable to help herself, Hinata’s eyes twitched in her guardian’s direction. Kurenai stared back at her, offering voiceless strength and mute support through the liquid intensity of her carmine eyes.
“I know you’re worried,” Shizune murmured, dragging both women’s attention to her, though the prosecutor only had eyes for the shell shocked teen, “and after our last visit, I’m sure I’m probably the last person you want to see.”
Shizune was being modest in her description of the teen’s reluctance.
In reality, Hinata would rather be anywhere else in the world than where she was now, who she was with now.
Shizune herself wasn’t the source of Hinata’s stress-induced responses, rather, it was the updates Shizune brought with her that coaxed true terror from the emotionally vulnerable girl. Most of them were pretty standard, some even predictable, like her father’s lawyers utilizing every trick in the book to delay the trial, filing appeals and motions to dismiss less than air-tight charges. These update had become somewhat routine with a mild impact to her anxiety, however, the last time Shizune sat in that chair, she’d told her that her father was using his money, connections and sheer tenacity to try and get his ‘no-bond’ status overturned, and subsequently released from jail until the trial.
A bail hearing had been set, though, Hinata hadn’t wanted to be told the date, knowing she’d obsess over the countdown to the day, slowly but surely driving herself insane.
But it lingered in the back of her mind.
The possibility that her father would get out of jail.
What he’d do to her if he did…
“Now,” Shizune sighed, drawing Hinata’s scattered attention, “I’ll warn you, not everything is going to be good news this time, and I know that’s not what you were hoping to hear but its not all bad either. Breathe, honey. Okay? Just breathe through this, and I’ll tell you what your next steps are going forward, okay?”
Hinata nodded again, her vocal cords too tight to force words through.
Her head felt like air on her shoulders, her clammy palms shaking, nearly deaf to to the words Shizune spoke as her heart drummed against her eardrums.
She knew in the back of her mind what these symptoms were.
Telltale signs of an impending fainting episode.
Hinata fought for consciousness, her stomach heaving nausea as she waited breathless for Shizune to speak next.
“Hinata, are you alright?”
Hinata wasn’t sure which woman asked, despite staring directly at the one of them, submerged as she was in that strange place between surreal laced dread and hyper focused expectation she was missing glaringly obvious observations in single minded pursuit of unknown details.
“So, good news first. The bond hearing went exactly the way we wanted, Judge Chiriku denied the motion to lift your father’s ‘no bond’ judgment, not just because your father is a flight risk, but due to the severity of the crimes he’s accused of committing, the extent and length of time the bulk of your abuse occurred…” her lips thinned, onyx eyes lighting with righteous ire, “Judge Chiriku and I understand very well the monster we have behind bars, and I promise you, we will do everything in our power to keep him there until the day he stands to answers for those crimes.”
Relief, overwhelming relief swelled just below the frozen lake of numbness surrounding her, so sharp and potent it hurt. Her spine wilted a bit, sending her melting back into the soft cushions of her armchair, feeling more faint than she had before, Hinata struggled to breathe.
To really absorb the news in all it’s entirely.
Father wasn’t getting out.
He would remain in prison until the trial…
For now, she was safe.
She was trembling she realized distantly, the strength that’d kept her spine stiff threatening to buckle entirely. Her earlier exhaustion was nothing compared to how wrung out and run down she felt now but she forced herself to endure just a bit longer, to push through to see the other side of this coin.
“Thank goodness,” Kurenai whispered at the pale girl sagging in the armchair to her right, her emotional eyes a manifestation of the soothing hug Hinata knew the older woman wanted to give her.
Hinata drew on the compassionate expression, eking out a small second wind from it’s warmth, wrapping it around herself in an unconscious effort to thaw the cold emptiness spreading through her body.
Shizune allowed herself a small smile, happy to impart something good for once.
Then, she took a breath, setting Hinata once more on full alert.
“Now, Hinata, before I we move on to the next bit of information, I need you to listen all the way to the end. Can you do that for me? Just breathe and listen, okay?”
She must have nodded, because Shizune nodded too.
“Unfortunately, your aunt Suzume was able to make bail, this morning” the prosecutor stated, rushing to add as Hinata’s eyes grew wide and panicked, her pale skin taking on a sickly pallor, “she’s been placed under house arrest and released until the trial. If she goes anywhere she’s not’s pre-approved to be the authorities will apprehend her immediately, and she’ll be back in jail with new charges and no chance of a second release.”
Hinata felt reality shift, gravity tilting on its axis even though she was was sitting still.
Shizune was up and around the coffee table, placing her hands on the armchair as she dropped into a squat in front of the stone still girl, catching her moonstone eyes with the fierceness of her dark ones, “breathe, Hinata…breathe honey. You are still covered by the protective order, she can’t get anywhere near you. Trust me. I saw her, that woman was desperate to get out of jail, she doesn’t want to go back, and she knows, the judge warned her in no uncertain terms that if she comes within 1500 feet of you she is done. Bond revoked, back behind bars until trial. No exceptions.”
Hinata felt Kurenai shadow on her left, her presence equal parts comforting, equal parts as suffocating as Shizune’s at her feet.
Her skin felt too tight…
She was surrounded…the walls closing in-
“Listen, listen to me, she won’t get near you. No communication of any kind, verbal, written, third party, nothing, and if you even suspect anything like that is occurring, even if you aren’t completely sure, contact the police and then contact my office immediately after and we’ll take our findings straight to the judge. Judge Chiriku made clear that…”
Hinata wilted for a second time, the conversation around her sailing over her head.
They didn’t know aunt Suzume…
Aunt Suzume adored her brother, would do anything for him, even violate a restraining and return to prison, anything to stop her from, through bribes or threats.
Hinata didn’t want to testify. She didn’t want to get up on that stand and relive her past but…
If she didn’t see this through, if she didn’t stand strong and tell her story beneath the glare of his white eyes and an audience of strangers Hinata knew her father would go free.
He’d throw every dime of his considerable wealth at rigging the scales of justice, call on every high profile official that owed him a favor to place their thumb on levers of power that were supposed to be impartial but weren’t. Hiashi Hyuuga was already engaging in these nefarious endeavors to a lessor extent, but with her testimony, it would be harder for his schemes to work. Nearly impossible to sanitize his image with the evidence of her horrible injuries memorialized in the stark digital cameras of KPD and the first hand testimony of the victim in those photos.
If she didn’t take the stand then…
Then…
He’d get out, and he’d come after her and anything he’d ever done to her in her miserable life would be acts of kindness compared to what he’d do to her once he got her hands on her.
He’d kill her.
She knew that, she’d know it the night she escaped.
But he’d make her suffer first.
He’d destroy her down to the very raw composition of her soul before finishing what he started, what he nearly accomplished that fateful night.
-
She was excused from sitting in on the less earth shattering court updates.
She stood in her room for countless moments, unable to make her body function, her thoughts to restart.
She was empty inside, hallowed painfully that the sudden silence around her hurt.
It hit her all at once.
Fear, panic, hopeless despair, and a festering cauldron of a emotions so dark, so overwhelmingly potent she was propelled to the bathroom at a near sprint, barely getting the lid up before her stomach violently evacuated its contents.
-
Hinata lay staring at the ceiling long after midnight, numb and weary and yet so far out of range of sleep.
She’d taken all her nighttime meds, the ones that were supposed to calm her mind and shut her body down when she couldn’t do it herself. She may as well have skipped them for all their efficacy tonight, and a slightly paranoid piece of her overwrought mind wondered if they had been placebo tablets this entire time.
Maybe she should take another dose of Desyrel, just this once.
Anything to disconnected herself from reality-
Every delicate muscle in her body locked, every inch of her freezing but her wide, frightened eyes drifting slowly to the shadow standing on the right side of her bed.
She barely made out white eyes in the darkness before a hand wrapped around her throat.
She kicked her feet uselessly as she was dragged from her bed, hands instinctively clawing at the hands around her neck, though she didn’t make a sound, disgustingly hardwired to keep quiet when father used her as a punching bag, her pitiful default set to keeping silent until the violence was over and she was left in a pool of agony alone in the attic or wherever her father saw fit to leave her battered body.
The hands at her throat tightened, cutting off her oxygen and shutting down any attempt to speak at all.
She awoke on a silent scream, scrambling for her bedside lamp, damp, shaky fingers missing twice before pulling the short chain and flooding her bedroom with light.
She panted in the brightness, gasping in great heaves in a desperate bid to fill her lungs.
To prove that she could breathe.
That her father hadn’t truly been strangling the life out of her-
A sob left her throat despite herself, fisting her dark hair she pressed her shaking hands to her crown, fighting the urge to scream, to give voice to the crushing weight living life in this world was placed on her slender shoulders.
Emotion hit her in writhing waves, crashing over her with brute force.
She rode out her anguish for what felt like a torturous eternity, rocking forward and back, her shaking hand pressed against her mouth as she wept.
She felt even more run down in the aftermath.
Listing to the side where the wall met her bed, head landing with a thud she didn’t care about nor did she feel.
How long she sat there, staring at nothing, she didn’t know.
Maybe she would have stayed like that all night had birdlike chirp not pierced her zombied state. She glanced at her phone, blink away tears as she did.
Her screen was lit up with a little information bubble.
A notification from that app…LINE.
She reached for her phone, already knowing who it was since she only had one friend on the application.
Swiping away her screensaver, Hinata clicked on the little green icon and opened the message to read.
UzuRuto: hey, I no its late n ur probly sleep so hopefully u read this b4 u try 2 leave 2morrow mornin but can we meet a lil later 4 the project? my dumbass had the wrong time 4 my club n so i cant meet u that early. Only reason i even knew it wus wrong is cuz dad makes a schedule evry month n tapes it to the fridge bc me and ma cant get our shit 2gether n remember what time we gotta b where. went 2 get a snack a few minutes ago n saw it. Almost spilled my cup noodles tryna get my phone to text ya. anyway we can meet up at 12 instead? then we can use rest of the day to work on it. bring a lunch wit u.
It was hard to understand the abbreviated words and strange phrasing but…she got the gist of it, or hoped she did. Bringing her knees to her chest, Hinata brought the phone to her knees and carefully type her response in chat box.
HinaHina: Ok.
She hadn’t given herself that name, Naruto had, chuckling at her blank-eyed curiosity with an explanation that he was ‘ass at coming up with cool usernames’, not that she minded. Hinata didn’t know the first thing about creating a username and was probably far worse than he could ever be at it.
She’d barely put the phone down when it chimed with a response.
UzuRuto: o ur up. surprised. u stay up to watch anime on adult swim 2?
Like many thing, Hinata didn’t know what that meant.
Emotions still running high, the lack of knowledge made her feel a bit weepy.
Through watery eyes, she typed back.
HinaHina: Whats adult swim?
UzuRuto: are u kiddin????
HinaHina: no
And for the next few hours, Naruto explained that and more in a series of text imbued with his sunny energy and animated way of speaking.
List after list of his favorite shows and lines. Endless, colorful, vibrant themed stickers and short clips.
Hinata felt…warm as she read his wall of text.
The hallowed corners of her mind held at bay by the radiance of the teen on the other end of her LINE.
¸*´¨`*•.¸｡ପଓ +.*¸*´¨`*•.¸｡¸ପଓ +.*¸*´¨`*•.¸｡¸*
Laters!
Sessakag~
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