Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Rosemary For Remembrance ❯ Blackthorn ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Rosemary For Remembrance

Author: Sintari

Summary: Hyuga is a house with many rooms. A Neji & Hinata-centric fic. Expect madness, love, sex, and murder.

Rating: G for this chapter; eventually up to NC-17

Genre: Het. Drama/Angst. Yaoi will be mentioned. Various pairings t.b.a.

Spoilers: Up to Manga 105

Archive: Scimitar Smile, FF.net

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

As always, this fic is dedicated to the lovely Nayla (because we love Hanabi way more than we should).

Chapter 1 - Blackthorn

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.

- Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Hyuga Himiko's body was pulled from the Nakano River on a Wednesday evening.

And even though the Hyugas that gathered on the river bank at the news that the search was over had dozens of sets of Byakugan eyes between them, none of them noticed Hinata until she had gotten close enough to see roots tangled in long black hair. Her mother's pink formal kimono was a gash of color where the setting sun had cast the world in silver.

An old uncle finally noticed Hinata when she reached up to take one of her mother's hands. Surprisingly, the Heir did not cry, so they allowed the small gesture while Hiashi carried the body all the way up to the hill and into the house.

It was determined that Himiko had been gathering her herbs by the riverbed and had fallen and hit her head on a rock.

Later, with the infant Hanabi beside them in her cradle, Hiashi would remark on Hinata's dry eyes. It would be her last compliment from her father for a long time to come.

()()()()()

Despite the ominous portent of her mother's mysterious death so soon after her birth, it was clear that Hiashi's second daughter would be another Hyuga genius. At three years old, Hanabi could flawlessly execute the basic forms and then activate her fledgling Byakugan in the kitchen to discover which cabinet hid the cookies.

Tongues had wagged two years before when the Heir was betrothed to a non-Byakugan user, the younger Uchiha. And they wagged again when Hanabi's third birthday came and went and her forehead remained bare of the jinjutsu that would cement her status in the Branch House. As Hanabi grew and the marked difference between Hiashi's two girls became clear, rumors flew that Hiashi would put the weaker Hinata aside for the younger but more skilled Hanabi.

()()()()()

There are certain established rules of decorum in a house where people can see through walls. When you have eyes that can see everything, it's surprising how much time you spend not looking.

"Tetsuo is smoking cigarettes again," Hanabi reported to Hinata one day after school. The older Hyuga looked up from her homework to find her sister peering through their dining room wall.

"Don't. It's rude," she admonished, but Hanabi, as usual, ignored her. The younger girl had finished her homework long ago and should have been at her training. Hinata knew it was uncharitable, but she secretly thought her sister enjoyed pestering her while she worried over her math homework. It had always been her most despised subject and one that Hanabi, of course, excelled at.

Hinata knew she should try to stop Hanabi from spying, but instead she used the reprieve to concentrate on a particularly vexing word problem. She thought she has almost figured the formula out when Hanabi, added, "Oh! There's Neji!"

Hinata's pencil faltered and she had to erase a stray line she had accidentally drawn on the page.

"I wonder if he would fight me?" Hanabi mused aloud.

"No!" Hinata exclaimed, and both sisters were taken aback by the force behind her words. More softly, she added, "You know father told you to stay away from him. You'll get in trouble."

Hanabi, who was perched on their dining table now, peered at Hinata from under her lashes. "Or I could get him in trouble," she said slyly.

Hinata's brows drew together in puzzlement. "Hanabi, what do you mean?" she asked cautiously.

"I saw you both at school." Hanabi shrugged. "The way he glared at you until you fumbled your shuriken throw and Iruka gave you a bad mark. I'll bet father wouldn't like to know how someone from the Branch Family," she said the name of the lower house as if tasting sour milk, "caused someone from the Main Family to fail a test."

Hinata had gone deathly pale in her chair, homework forgotten. "Don't," she breathed to her younger sister, eyes wide. "P-p-lease. Just don't say anything about that to Otousan. It was m-my fault."

"What will you give me?" Hanabi asked, obviously pleased with her sister's response. Hinata finally realized that this was what she had been angling for all along as she remembered how Hanabi had remarked on the pendant she had received for her last birthday. Her father had gifted her with the silver heart-shaped charm from her mother's jewelry collection when she turned eleven.

"I-" Hinata began, and for once she was grateful to her stammer for giving her the time to stop and think. Before she had to make a decision, though, she was saved by her father's entrance. After smiling at Hanabi's work, he nodded at the younger girl and then sent her out to train. Hanabi darted a small, sharp-toothed smile over her shoulder at her older sister as she left the room. For once, Hinata could have kissed her father as he lectured her on her uncompleted problems.

()()()()()

Hanabi was able to slip away from her instructor easily enough. In matters of skill, it was clear that she had already surpassed him, even at six years old. In fact, Hanabi was sure that she could defeat anyone living in the Hyuga Compound, except her father.

And possibly, her cousin Neji.

She had used her Byakugan to spy on him as he left their aunt's house at the back of the Compound and headed toward the forest. Choosing a route through the trees, she prepared to materialize on top of one of the posts where Neji was practicing with his shurikens. Hanabi loved dramatic entrances.

She had already molded chakra in her legs to propel the jump when she heard the calm, flat voice from below her.

"Go away."

Startled - how had he seen her? His Byakugan wasn't even activated!? - Hanabi stumbled a bit and ended up making an ungraceful landing beside the post. Scowling a little, she straightened herself and demanded, "Not until you fight me!"

She was surprised when her cousin scowled back at her. "I'm training," he said tonelessly.

"Then I'm here to help," she declared, and dropped into her stance.

It did not escape her notice when her cousin rolled his eyes.

"Don't you know who I am?" she asked imperiously.

She was answered by a rush of air as a shuriken flew by her ear before landing in the center of the target. She stood there, stunned that he would dare, and another shuriken soon followed the first. Placing her hands on her hips and standing firmly in front of the target she shouted, "You can't just throw shurikens at me!"

A kunai brushed by her scalp so close that she thought it shaved a couple of hairs from the top of her head.

She clenched her fists in frustration. "I'm Hanabi, the Hyuga Second Daughter and I demand that you fight me. Right now!"

Her cousin finally ceased his barrage of weapons. "Oh yeah?" he asked, arching an eyebrow. "Or you'll what?"

At this, her lips curved into a small smile and she slowly brought her finger up and tapped her bare forehead. Observant, she was inwardly pleased to see her impassive cousin swallow before replying.

"You don't know how," he said, voice expressionless again. Never completely turning his back on her, Neji began gathering his weapons from the target and dropping them back into his pack.

"I do so!" Hanabi countered.

Neji smirked, and if she had unsettled him at all with her implied threat he showed no sign of nervousness now.

"You're lying. I can tell by the way your eyes moved just now."

Hanabi scowled at him again. "Oh, so you're a mind reader? What else do you think you know?"

Neji's smile showed sharp, even teeth. "That you'll never know how to do that." He tapped his covered forehead. "Because you'll have one yourself soon enough."

Hanabi scoffed and trailed along behind Neji as he walked in the direction of the Hyuga Compound. Apparently he would rather cut his training session short than be there with her.

"I've seen those marks. I know you have one on your forehead. But they're for the Branch House, not the Main House."

Neji was a few steps ahead of her, and made no attempt to raise his voice so she could hear him.

"And how do you think one becomes a member of the Branch House?"

Hanabi considered for a moment. "Easy. You're born into it."

Neji turned back to face her then. "In most cases, yes. But there is a special case. When the Head of the Clan has more than one child, all but the oldest are consigned to the Branch House, as well." He added, as if in afterthought, "Second Daughter."

Hanabi felt her face flush. But then she had an idea. "Do you mean there can only be one heir?"

"Yes," he answered her curtly. "And you're not it."

They were nearing the Compound now and she knew she would get in trouble if she were seen with her older cousin. But as the gates with their embossed flame symbols came into view she brought her fingers to her own smooth forehead.

"We'll see about that."

Neji just turned and smirked at her again. "It's your destiny, Second Daughter. There's nothing you can do about it."

The implications of all that he had said were suddenly clear to her. It was true that there was only one heir and right now, that was Hinata. All of the pieces began to fall into place as she stood there on the banks of the Nakano River.

And then she made a vow.

"You listen to me," she shouted at her cousin's retreating back, and her raised voice sounded thin and reedy above the flowing of the water. "I'll never be a caged bird. Never!"

Her cousin ignored her and slipped inside the heavy gates.

Before following, Hanabi looked out across the water for a long moment.

"Never," she whispered to herself. "I swear it."

()()()()()

Hinata was not unhappy with her Genin team. Kurenai was a patient instructor, and both of her teammates were boys from old clans. Her father dismissed the Inuzukas as "half-wild" and warned her that the Aburames were a suspicious and distrustful bunch, but she found that she got along well with Kiba and Shino. She did not dare voice her disappointment that she hadn't been paired on a team with Uzumaki Naruto. The one time she had made the mistake of mentioning that particular boy at home she had been told in no uncertain terms that she was forbidden from associating with him.

So she was slightly apprehensive about accepting when Naruto asked her for a walk one afternoon. He had found her in the street studying a poster advertising the upcoming Chuunin exam. Her interest in the flyer was more to delay going home than because she thought Kurenai would enter her team. When he approached her, she had shot a glance across the river to the Hyuga Compound, but she saw no one watching her and she could only hope that no one would be rude enough to use their Byakugan to peer though the walls.

"Let's walk by the river," he had suggested. She thought that he seemed unusually subdued, but she chalked it up to nervousness. He had never seemed to notice her before. In fact, before he had called to her in the street, she wasn't even sure that he had known her name. He turned to take them downstream, toward where her mother's body had been found.

"L-let's walk the other way," she had said, and after asking her to speak up where he could hear her, he had agreed.

They had walked in silence. And that more than anything clued her into to the fact that something was very wrong.

Finally, after what felt like a mile of steeling herself, she found the nerve to ask, "Naruto-kun? Why is it you wanted to walk with me?"

She had smiled to herself when he scratched the back of his head in a very Naruto-like gesture. And so she was looking away when he somehow slipped and fell into the river.

"Oi! Hinata, I can't swim!" he had shouted in a panicked voice, arms flailing. And even though he was no more than a few yards from her, his voice had sounded very far away.

For a few seconds, she stood on the bank paralyzed by the belief that the river was going to take a second person she cared for.

Then that everything had clicked into place. She activated her Byakugan just to be sure, and as she had thought, the chakra patterns traveling through the drowning body were not Naruto's. They were Iruka's.

"I won't go into the river, Iruka-sensei," she had said quietly. "I know you can swim, and so can Naruto."

A puff of smoke revealed that the person who had asked her for a walk was indeed Iruka-sensei. Her former teacher climbed out of the river, soaking wet and smiling weakly.

"You've passed!" he declared, and she didn't need Byakugan to see that his cheeriness was just an act.

She stared at him incredulously as he explained about the preliminary tests for the Chuunin exam. Kiba and Shino had passed too, he told her, and she should talk to Kurenai about what to do next.

They stood there together for a moment, both looking into the river. With her Byakugan activated, Hinata could see through the surface to the bottom. That was how they had found her mother that day - they had looked through the water with their special eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, the Byakugan was gone and the surface of the river was just a smooth brown sheet in front of her.

"You passed the test because you saw through my illusion, it's true. But a Chuunin also has to face her fears," Iruka had said. "Think about that before you decide to take the test, Hinata."

()()()()()

When you have studied someone as Neji had Hinata, it is a simple thing to dissect that person. To cut her into easily digested pieces in front of her peers. To expose every weakness, and every hidden fear.

Even virtues can become flaws under a strong enough glare.

He knew how to tear her up, and how to take her apart, because he had been watching her every move since she was three years old.

"The person lost and suffering within the Main and Branch Houses is you, Neji-niisan."

What stung was that she could do the same to him when, as far as he knew, she had never really seen him at all.

TBC