Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Rosemary For Remembrance ❯ The Color of Water, Part II ( Chapter 11 )

Chapter 11 - The Color of Water, Part II

 

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

Which we ascribe to Heaven.

 

- Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

 

“Hyuga Tetsuo is dead.”

 

She had heard it quite by chance on her way to her evening shift at the hospital. Or so she had thought at first. Then the two opaque-eyed Hyuga who had been conversing stopped and stared at her as she passed. It was a message of course.

 

“Do not interfere.”

 

As if she could.

 

It was a brain aneurysm, she had learned that night. The bruises on his heels, his elbows and the back of his head indicated that he suffered massive seizures before finally passing on. Hinata knew that had been deliberate. She knew it in the way one knows there's an intruder in the house, or that the baby has died.

 

She had watched the processional over her backyard fence as her cousin's ashes were carried over the bridge and through the village before they would be deposited in the family plot. Tetsuo didn't deserve this. Tetsuo, whose only sins had been merely average taijutsu ability, an unhealthy propensity for cigarettes, and the fact that he came to Uzumaki Hinata for help when his life became unbearable.

 

It had been a rainy spring. The Nakano River, separating her from the mourners, swelled with murky water.

 

()()()()()

 

One week after Tetsuo's funeral, Hanabi took her seat at the table beside her husband. Under the speculative gazes of her in-laws, she was aware more than ever of her tiny breasts and flat belly. This was only the second day of the Saito's month-long visit and the subject of an heir for their only son had already come up in conversation four times. Nobody had forgotten the clause in their elaborate marriage contract: within five years, Hyuuga Hanabi must provide Saito Katsuro with an heir or their union is nullified. The Saito's were one of the oldest and most respectable families in the Water Country, and they intended to remain that way. Merging a shinobi clan with a non-shinobi clan was proving harder than Hanabi had ever envisioned.

 

Her mother-in-law leaned in and stage whispered, “Are you sure you're not exercising too much, dear? Physical fitness is a virtue, of course, but too much er… training can wreak havoc with your cycles, you know.”

 

Hanabi affected her best blank Hyuga gaze and reminded herself yet again that the bottom line of numbers in her accounting ledger depended on the alliance with this woman - no matter how much fat oozed around the rings on her sausage-fingers as she reached for another shrimp scampi. Disgusting.

 

()()()()()

 

Neji appeared at the secret door to her room that night precisely on time.

 

“Hanabi-sama.”

 

That had become his customary greeting. Hanabi had long since given up on getting or giving in pleasure in their brief, perfunctory encounters. She often found herself going over the accounts in her head while he pumped methodically and more than once she imagined she felt him mouthing multiplication tables against her shoulder. The child, though - the offspring of two of the most powerful Hyuga in generations - would be worth it.

 

“My time is running out,” she said in clipped tones that night as she pulled up her nightgown. “If I'm not pregnant soon, I'll have to give up on you and taint our line with Saito blood. Perhaps that old wise woman was wrong and you are sterile.”

 

“Perhaps.”

 

Still mostly dressed, Neji entered her unceremoniously. She never ceased to marvel at his ability to perform on command.

 

After a quick prayer that tonight was the night, Hanabi eased herself back against the big pillows and began to tally the cost of a second new addition to the Main House.

 

()()()()()

 

The lack of heir weighed heavily on Katsuro's mind that night as well. Somewhere along the line, between signing the marriage contract and growing accustomed to his strange new home, he had actually come to love his wife. Growing up the pampered son of the Water daimyo's favored counselor, Katsuro had only known women as ornamentation. Before Hanabi, he had never met a woman so intelligent and capable. The fact that she barely gave him the time of day only made him want her more. So with a combination of a silver tongue, a stray flower from his hand-picked bouquet, and the assurances that he would protect her against Hanabi's volatile temper, he talked the Branch House guard outside his wife's room into letting him slip in to surprise her.

 

()()()()()

 

The Godaime found Hinata alone at the little house in the floodplain, the site of both her marriage's happiest and worst memories. Naruto had moved out just like they had done everything in those last few years - wordlessly.

 

No one answered the door, but Tsunade sensed the younger woman's chakra very near. She found Hinata at the back fence, staring out over the Nakano River. The small backyard had changed since Tsunade had last drank tea there on the tiny porch. It was less cheerful somehow. Barren, even.

 

“I was sorry…” Tsunade began, and Hinata didn't turn her head. “Sorry to hear about you and Naruto. I—“ But she didn't know what to say after that. “I saw it coming” didn't seem like the kindest condolence she could offer. At least she wasn't crying, though. Tsunade never had figured out how to handle a crying woman.

 

“I was sorry, too,” Hinata answered faintly. “But that's not what you're here about, is it?”

 

“No. I'm here about your cousin.”

 

“Tetsuo?”

 

“Neji.”

 

Hinata finally turned to face her.

 

“What about Neji?”

 

Tsunade's fingers suddenly itched to grab the hipflask in her pocket, but she refrained.

 

“Your sister has accused him of rape. He is to be executed.”

 

“That's insane. Neji would never!” It was the first time, even in the frenetic setting of an operating room, that Tsunade had ever heard Hyuga Hinata raise her voice. Good, her hunch had been correct. She could use this. Tsunade ushered Hinata into the house, explaining all the while.

 

“We think this could be a ruse to provoke a war with the village. That little bi—I mean, Hanabi has as much as told me that she doesn't consider the Hyuga a part of Konoha anymore.” They both glanced out the kitchen window, in the direction of the Hyuga walls beyond the river. “She's mustering an army in there, Hinata. Scout's report that her husband's parents are visiting even now. And you know who the Saitos are. If she needs resources, they have very deep pockets.”

 

Hinata was shaking her head. Tsunade couldn't keep the anger from her voice.

 

“I'm trying to stop the Sound Village here, and the last goddamn thing I need on top of that is a war at home. Do you get me?”

 

”I've been banished from my family, Godaime-sama. I'm just a simple medic-nin now. What on earth do you think I could do against the head of Hyuga?”

 

Temptation won and Tsunade took a long swig from her hipflask.

 

“Just go talk to her. Feel around, gather information. We both know Neji didn't rape her. Go find out what he really did to piss her off so bad. And find out how the Saitos play into all this.” Hinata was shaking her head again. “You can do it, Hinata. You have to. You're the only one who can.”

 

Sensing Hinata's reluctance, she pulled out her trump card.

 

“I didn't want to have to tell you this, but Hanabi killed your father.”

 

()()()()()

 

It was only much later in the evening, after the hipflask had been emptied and refilled and emptied again several times, that Tsunade realized what had been wrong in Hinata's backyard. All the herbs had been tilled over.

 

()()()()()

 

They learned in the Academy that the world runs in a great circle. That history, the seasons, even a single human life is cyclical. This had always seemed obvious to Hinata. Intuitive.

 

Hyuga would continue on its course. A benevolent ruler - as she now realized Hyuga Hiashi had been in his later years - would give way to a cruel one. Feelings between the Main House and the Branch house would cool and then they would warm again.

 

The Nakano River would empty into the sea.

 

The water where Hyuga Himiko died would evaporate eventually, and then condense into liquid again. When the air could not hold it anymore, the molecules that made up her mother's last drink would turn to rain. Perhaps it was Hyuga Himiko's final underwater tears that stung Hinata's face on the icy afternoon when her cousin Neji revealed that there was not a single living soul left in this world who loved her.

 

The knowledge that she would never be good enough was like a stone in her throat - much larger and more substantial than the flat rocks in her pockets and sewn into the lining of her best kimono. Hyuga Hinata knew that the world turned in cycles, just as she knew that her fate lay beneath the dark waters of the Nakano River.

 

Her hands, just under the surface, were silvery, pale, and she imagined that they were already beginning to dissolve. When the water closed over her head, it seemed like she suddenly had all the time in the world. Time to think about her short life, of fate, and the nature of love.

 

Love, she thought, was a lake that two people named on a night with a thousand stars. Only, the lake dried up, or the two lovers couldn't find it again, or they didn't even look.

 

Love was watching cartwheels on the lip of a wooden fence, a gleam of pride in blank white eyes, and a tea kettle spinning and spinning until it finally sank beneath the brown water.

 

Love was written in silver in his eyes, even in the icy spring rain.

 

It took the last of her chakra to propel herself to the surface, and the air she never thought she would breathe again felt like praying.

 

()()()()()

 

Hanabi made her wait four hours before granting her an audience. Even so, when she was escorted into the dining room, Hinata's best kimono was still wet at the cuffs and hems. She knew Hanabi would note it, as she had always noted everything.

 

“You've been swimming, Hinata-oneesan?” she asked pleasantly.

 

“Yes.”

 

Hinata ignored the sharp glance her sister shot her. So there were some things Hanabi's spies didn't know.

 

The Hyuga leader sat at the traditional spot at the head of the big table, while Hinata was shown to a seat at her left. The servant who had escorted Hinata into the dining hall kept his eyes on the ground until Hanabi dismissed him with a curt, “Leave us.”

 

Then they were alone for the first time in years.

 

Hinata surprised both of them by beginning the dinner conversation.

 

“How is your husband, Hanabi-sama?”

 

Hanabi-sama. The head of Hyuga watched her sister's lips as she shaped the words, then ran her tongue over her front teeth.

 

“He's spoiled and grows fat as an ox,” she answered truthfully. “And his parents are here, which is why you and I are dining alone. It's a good excuse to get out from under them for one evening. Aren't you lucky that you don't have to worry about in-laws?”

 

“Naruto and I are separated,” Hinata met her eyes. “But I suspect you knew that.”

 

The servant brought their tea then, and both sisters spent a moment preparing their drinks to their liking.

 

“I had heard something about it,” Hanabi finally agreed. “Honestly, what did you expect with someone like him?”

 

“He'll be Hokage someday,” Hinata said quietly.

 

Hanabi laughed lightly.

 

“I'm head of Hyuga. I don't give a damn who is Hokage.”

 

So it was true. Hanabi was breaking away from Konoha. And this, Hinata realized, was a little girl doing cartwheels on a fence all over again. Showing off in front of her less talented sister. Hinata took a good long look at the woman in front of her. She was beautiful, of course, slender and lithe. She ruled the most powerful clan in all of Konoha, perhaps in all the shinobi villages in the world. She was rich, had a husband who doted on her, and a band of followers who carried out her every whim. She was untouchable. But she would never, ever be satisfied for as long as she lived. That was what made her dangerous.

 

The fact that it wasn't her fault was what made it tragic.

 

“I've come to beg you for Neji's life,” Hinata changed the direction of the conversation abruptly.

 

Hanabi didn't bother to protest or play the simpering victim.

 

“He raped me,” she challenged. “My husband witnessed it, for gods' sakes. The penalty for harming the Head is death. You know that. He dies at dawn.”

 

Their eyes locked , Hinata dared to reach up and brush a strand of hair behind her little sister's ear. Hanabi was so surprised that she froze stock still and allowed it.

 

“We both know he couldn't have raped you, sister.” She tapped her own forehead meaningfully. “Everybody knows.”

 

Hanabi swallowed and Hinata continued.

 

“Just like they know that you killed Otousan.”

 

Hanabi's face transformed into a mask of rage. She jumped up, and her whole body shook. Her fingers flexed as if itching to strangle someone.

 

“I would never! To say that is treason! I should have you killed for that!”

 

“I'm sorry,” Hinata whispered. Hanabi would never know what for.

 

A Hyuga woman doesn't have the luxury of crying. She must turn her head and not see. Their mother had been the quintessential Hyuga woman - beautiful, meek, polite and courteous - and Hinata had lived her entire life in tribute to her.

 

Yes, Hyuga Himiko had been a great woman, it was true. But she had also been wrong.

 

And the poison Hinata slipped into her sister's drink was the color of water.

 

TBC…

 

A/N: This is the last full chapter. The epilogue is all written and will be out as soon as I doctor it up a bit, as per my beta's suggestion. Thank you the lovely reviews!