CHAPTER XXXII
A/N: The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed certain delays in
Lighting Up the Dark's update schedule. I think it may be time to talk about the future of the fic. Simply put, the state of my mental health makes it difficult to write consistently. Such spoons as I have tend to go to my other project,
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest, which uses them more efficiently for a variety of reasons (such as de facto writing prompts and talented co-authors), and even there my performance is somewhat erratic.
There are three possible futures for
LUtD that I can see right now. The worst and most realistic is that I get to the end of the current arc (which is fairly well plotted-out despite delays to the actual writing) and finish there, in which case I'll also post the rest of the plot for those who are interested. A more optimistic one is that I'll get to the end of Part 1, which should have another couple of arcs left in it (exact number unclear). Actually getting to the end, through the Intermission (or whatever I end up calling it) and the completely-original Part 2, would require a significant improvement in my mental health which I'm not sure how to bring about, as well as stalling my as-yet-unnamed original-fiction project (for which I don't have spoons either). Then again, writers like D. D. Webb manage to write amazing fiction to a consistent schedule despite having worse problems than mine, so it must be possible. I'm not giving up preemptively.
I hope that you continue to enjoy this ride alongside me, however far it ends up going.
Finally, many thanks to apooooop, Halberdier, and Meneldur for beta reading, and also to everyone else who volunteered, even if I didn't take up your offer of help on this occasion.
-o-
"Begin!"
The murmur of the audience faded into nothingness. The worry about Naruto's absence shifted from a pulsing concern to a troubled whisper in the back of her mind. Hinata was as far from mastery of the one-pointed focus that supposedly marked a true Hyūga as she was from the sun, but just for this moment, the razor-sharp combination of determination, alertness, and screaming survival instinct (
Gaara!) was enough to imitate it. In a second, her awareness would expand, bringing with it a rush of information sufficient to incapacitate an ordinary human, and hidden somewhere within that ocean of information would be her key to victory.
In accordance with the wisdom of Naruto, she was going into the battle with a clear plan, which she would be forced to discard within seconds because ninja combat was like that, but which would give her something to work with early on and, equally importantly, make her opponent think she knew what she was doing. Hinata's plan was simple. The Sidewinder Style (or at least its prototype) was designed for use in quick bursts because of the high chakra cost, but during those bursts she would have better speed and agility than Gaara–a long-range specialist, as far as she could tell, not a taijutsu user–could possibly keep up with. The Byakugan would warn her about Gaara's own trump card if he had one he could deploy instantly, and if she could get within Eight Trigrams range before he acted, the battle was over. Failing that, the Hyūga absolute defence would cover for a failed attack while she looked for another opening.
"Byakugan!"
The plan was discarded instantly.
With all of the chakra she could flare at one moment, Hinata threw herself as far back as she could.
"Heavenly Spin!"
It had been so close. If she hadn't Seen Gaara by chance in the Forest of Death, if she hadn't watched Shino's insects die at an impossible range and Gaara react to her presence, if she hadn't pondered several theories ("Never look at cool stuff and stop; cool stuff always has even cooler implications")… she wouldn't have realised that her absolute defence would mean nothing if triggered within Gaara's zone of control.
This theory had been among the first she'd discarded, Hinata reflected in the seconds she'd bought herself to think. As a Byakugan user, she knew the limits of the human brain better than anyone on the planet. She knew that they were greater than any non-Hyūga could understand, and that the Byakugan held the secret that might one day let her reach them (an impossible fantasy for someone of her talent, but one held by every Hyūga since the dawn of time).
She also knew that those limits were non-negotiable.
The Byakugan was humanity's greatest achievement in real-time parallel processing. Its limitations weren't arbitrary; they were boundary markers of how far it was safe to go even with the power of a Bloodline Limit, and she had known early bloomers who'd paid an irreversible price for trying to push beyond them. A boy who'd declared no notable lineage (forget a Bloodline Limit; he wasn't even registered under a clan name) should have burned his brain to ashes long before reaching even Hinata's level.
Yet all Hinata could see in front of her was that patient, gentle smile, wrapped in a frozen storm of power that belonged in the domain of gods… or monsters.
There was a puff of sand scattering through the air as Gaara began to test her defences.
"That's very impressive," he said, his smile widening to a boyish grin. "I've had people punch through my sand with chakra emission before, but no one's ever done it with… what is this? Centrifugal force?
"That's such a great counter to my abilities!" he exclaimed after a second's thought. "Static shields can get very strong, but finding the weak points gets a bit samey after a while. Then again, unlike a static shield, all that energy has to be coming from somewhere. Can you really afford to keep it up for long?"
Why on earth would anyone answer that kind of question? Why even ask it?
No, wait. She could easily see someone confident and quick-witted like Naruto rising to the occasion with a snappy one-liner. And then Gaara would know whether the Heavenly Spin was permeable to sound (it wasn't—the Byakugan just made lip-reading a lot easier).
"So how are you generating a constant output like that?" he asked. "Wind or Lightning ninjutsu wouldn't be opaque. Water would interact with my sand. Fire would interfere with your air supply, and using Earth chakra for a non-physical barrier is so terribly inefficient that nobody would teach a technique like that to a genin. Does that mean what you're using to keep your technique stable isn't an elemental property?"
He held up a hand abruptly. "No, don't tell me. I know it's rude of me to make you wait, but I'd really rather work it out for myself."
Hinata resented, just a little bit, watching the trump card she'd suffered through endless hours of dizziness and chakra exhaustion to learn get reduced to a puzzle for Gaara to toy with. On the other hand, she needed the time. The Heavenly Spin had a critical weakness: using any other technique, to attack or to reposition (Cousin Neji claimed "escape" wasn't in the Hyūga tactical lexicon), meant dropping the shield and accepting a moment of vulnerability. By happy coincidence, the Sidewinder Style helped compensate for this with its no-delay evasion, but it wouldn't be enough. Within his zone of control, Gaara could attack anywhere, from any angle, and he wouldn't need much sand to incapacitate her via her nose or ears (she would not get distracted imagining the details, she wouldn't).
A streamlined spike of compressed sand coalesced above her, directly over the weak spot at the top of the Heavenly Spin dome. It slammed down once, twice, thrice, reforming each time its tip was blown away.
Hinata had done her reading (of course). Weight from above had killed several Hyūga in the past. However, it was easier said than done. By the time you reached enough mass to be a threat, the object you were wielding was usually so big that you couldn't bring all of that mass to bear effectively. For example, if you dropped a wooden building on a Heavenly Spin user, they were liable to break through the floor rather than being crushed by the whole thing. A giant boulder would miss the top of the dome and get deflected. Those past deaths had usually been caused by weight manipulation ninjutsu applied to body parts or small objects.
Gaara's ability had a weakness his impossible mind couldn't compensate for. However skilled he was, however creative, he only had as much special sand as he'd brought with him to the arena. Unless he could accelerate it to incredible speeds on top of all his other powers, brute force wouldn't be enough to threaten her.
Gaara's smile widened slightly as he dissolved the spike in preparation for some different experiment. Somehow a battle of bodies and reflexes had turned into a battle of intellects. There would be no direct contact until one or both of them finished analysing the enemy and found a weakness, and exploited it in a single decisive move.
Gaara formed a giant shuriken of sand and set it to spin against the dome, using her own acceleration against her. Hinata tensed, but only a few seconds later, the shuriken fell apart. Another piece of data for both of them: his sand constructs could reach weapons-grade sharpness, but didn't have the durability to withstand the Heavenly Spin's force.
As Gaara pondered his next move, Hinata pondered hers. Limited mass and durability. If Gaara used a physical block to defend himself, she could use the Sidewinder Style's acceleration to break through it, and then the Gentle Fist would pierce any last line of defence he had at melee range. Granted, she might break her arm, but the Sidewinder Style would take care of that as well, at least for long enough (and though she'd never seen Gaara fight as such, her ninja survival instinct was inexplicably confident that a broken arm would be better than being at his mercy).
On the other hand, Gaara would be aware of such obvious weaknesses—and unlike him, she couldn't experiment. One way or another, her first move would also be her last. She needed more information, more time...
Gaara's next attempt was a dome of his own, descending to cover the Heavenly Spin from every angle at once. The Heavenly Spin began to shave the dome away from the inside, faster than Gaara could exert pressure.
The erosion speed was key. If she considered what that implied about his control…
No.
She'd fallen for Gaara's trap hook, line, and sinker. A battle of wits was exactly what he wanted—because their positions were not symmetrical.
The Heavenly Spin drained chakra proportionally to its speed. A mediocre Hyūga genin like Hinata was only capable of using it in live combat at all because she'd already been diligently building her reserves for the sake of the Sidewinder Style prototype. Meanwhile, Gaara was controlling his chakra-infused sand with no sign of exertion, mental or physical, almost as if he had an invisible second brain doing the heavy lifting for him. There was no question of who would run out first.
Gaara wasn't just conducting iterative testing. He was draining her resources and applying psychological pressure by imposing a time limit for her to solve the puzzle. Sooner or later, she'd decide she was out of time and go with the best solution she had, even if it wasn't good enough.
She was doing this wrong. Gaara's gradual leaking of information was a deliberate distraction. Hinata needed to think on a higher level. How?
Gaara only had two powers: dispersal and coalescence. By spreading his sand particles, he could exploit the tiniest gap. By converging them, he could create whatever tool the situation called for. If she wanted to beat Gaara, she needed to choose one of these powers and disable it long enough to strike.
Gaara's dome began to spin. He'd learned from the weaknesses of his spike (direct attacks were deflected, even at her weakest point), his shuriken (his sand wasn't strong enough to oppose the Heavenly Spin's rotation), and his dome (the rotation was too fast to apply pressure over time) to create a weapon that
could work. If he could match Hinata's rotation in the same direction, then his dome and hers would be static in relation to each other. It wouldn't be deflected. It wouldn't be eroded. It would apply pressure over time. Assuming he could reach enough velocity to catch up and enough force to overpower her chakra emission, he'd crush the Heavenly Spin like an egg.
It could be a bluff to force a desperate attack. He hadn't shown those levels of acceleration yet, and neither of them knew how much mass he needed. Could she risk—
Oh, no.
Maybe Gaara didn't know she could see through walls. Maybe he was underestimating her range by a few orders of magnitude. Naruto once said that the reason he didn't think they were living in a manga, despite all the evidence, was that no reader who knew the details of Leaf's "shamelessly broken" abilities, like the Byakugan, the Shadow Clone Technique, and the Yamanaka arts, would be able to believe that Leaf hadn't already conquered the world.
Beyond her dome and his, where only Hyūga eyes could see, a ribbon of Gaara's chakra snaked through the arena sand. Soon, it would reach beneath her feet.
Maybe Gaara did know about the Byakugan and was pretending he didn't. Maybe it was another layer of bluffing. Hinata didn't know what he had to do to sand in order to become able to control it, but for all she knew, it was a day-long ceremony that required fasting and ritual purification.
But with no way to know the truth, Hinata was out of time.
Coalescence. Dispersal. One shot, at the point where they intersected. It would take more than a broken arm when Gaara was smart enough to keep her guessing at his limits.
Thank goodness Naruto wasn't watching.
Hinata closed her eyes. She pressed down the back of her tongue, sealing off her trachea (an obscure trick "for those too weak of will to hold their breath with the determination of a proper Hyūga"). There was nothing she could do about her ears, but hopefully it wouldn't matter.
She dropped the Heavenly Spin and instantly activated the Sidewinder Style. Gaara's dome was solid, and spinning very fast, but it was still a thin shell more than a wall. With her brief burst of extreme speed, Hinata broke through, feeling sand grate across her skin, then took her biggest risk.
She suspended her Sidewinder Style charge just enough to free her arms to make her next move, trusting the chakra emission from her back to keep the sand from the broken dome off her for just a split second.
Gaara's own response was predictable. A shield decorated with an eye-like symbol coalesced between him and Hinata, blocking her thrown kunai before it got anywhere near him.
There was a mighty blast as the explosive tag attached to it detonated. Gaara's sand was blown away, scattered by the shockwave faster than he could pull it back.
With no time to pause, Hinata flew
through the burning, agonising aftershock of the explosion. Her hand was already raised for her finishing move, a Gentle Fist strike to the forehead that would disrupt Gaara's consciousness long enough for her to enter the Eight Trigrams stance.
Gaara might have been a nightmare opponent to defend against, but once she was on the offensive, he was the pocket mouse to her sidewinder. She alone of all his possible matchups could see both his secret last line of defence and the trump card lying in wait for those against whom even that was ineffective. The former wouldn't even slow her down. The latter wouldn't make it in time against the Sidewinder Style.
Hinata focused her chakra, reaching for the limits of the Gentle Fist's range—
Then she was on the floor, wrapped in an unyielding cocoon of sand, and everything was over.
The realisation clicked into place too late. Gaara had been conducting a so-far-successful weapons test. Since Hinata wasn't suicidal, Gaara would have assumed she had some way to monitor the outside of the Heavenly Spin barrier. He'd tested if it was permeable to sound. He'd commented that it was opaque, and added an extra layer of opaqueness with his own dome in case it was monodirectional. The chakra ribbon's purpose hadn't been an additional attack when he was still gathering data from his current one—it was a test to see if she could really sense chakra, and, as a corollary, if she was aware of his secret final layers of defence.
Everything after that had been predetermined. Gaara hadn't relied on the invisibly-thin layer of sand armour he kept close to his skin. He hadn't counterattacked with the gourd-shaped backup sand on his back. Instead, knowing that she knew, he'd simply mentally shoved the gourd away, yanking himself out of reach by his (otherwise unnecessary) shoulder strap, and then Hinata was out of moves.
Gaara gave a broad, grateful smile. "That was very interesting," he said. "There aren't many people whose abilities are so perfect for countering mine. It really made me improvise."
Tendrils of fear crept through Hinata's body, seizing her limbs and steadily closing in on her heart.
"I surrender!"
Gaara raised his eyebrows slightly. "Couldn't you use chakra emission to break free?"
"No," Hinata said, keeping the anxiety out of her voice. Without the Heavenly Spin, her tenketsu could only generate narrow needles of chakra, nothing that could destroy solid restraints. "Could you please release me now?"
"Of course," Gaara said. "You'll be free in just a few seconds."
A tube of sand coalesced in the air over Hinata.
"Contestant," the referee said somewhere outside Hinata's line of sight (there was no point wasting her limited remaining chakra on the Byakugan now), "she surrenders. Dispel your technique immediately."
Hope flickered.
"Quiet, please," Gaara snapped. "You're being inconsiderate to Miss Hinata."
The flicker was snuffed out as Hinata realised with cold certainty that the referee was also within Gaara's zone of control, and unless he had exactly the right set of abilities, he would never make it to Gaara in time.
The hollow, razor-edged tube began to spin.
-o-
Naruto picked up the pace as much as he dared. Even after a month of training, he couldn't afford to waste much chakra on basic physical enhancement right before a series of tough fights. On the other hand, he reflected as he ran over an unfortunately-placed fabric stall, leaving dirty sandal-prints down the middle of fine imported cloth, if he missed her first match, Hinata would kill him.
No, that wasn't fair. Hinata would give him her silent look of lamentful reproach, as if to say "I already knew I wasn't worth your time, but I thought you'd at least be kind enough to pretend, just this once", which was a lot worse. After that, his inevitable death at
Sakura's hands would be a mercy killing.
Unfortunately, the streets were thronged with people. To civilians, who rarely got the opportunity to see ninja fight and tended to have hilariously inaccurate ideas of what it entailed, the Chūnin Exam was the competitive event of the year–in fact, of several years, considering the majority would be locals stuck waiting until it was Leaf's turn to host again.
It was a perspective Naruto had never shared. Sure, seeing new ninjutsu when people weren't trying to kill you with them was interesting. But in the world of civilian sports, you had heroes who spilled blood, sweat, and tears to achieve feats like the Phantom Shot or the Meteor Jam, to say nothing of being able to enter the Zone, the mystical domain where invincible resolve could accomplish miracles—even with ten seconds left before the buzzer, an injured ankle, and the enemy ace, that cheating scumbag, already lining up for a three-point shot. Compared to that, the ability to combine Fire affinity and chakra projection to shoot fireballs from your mouth was... nifty, but pedestrian. Something anybody could do with a bit of training.
That said, Sasuke being able to do it straight out of the Academy was still pretty impressive. Naruto couldn't wait to see what his rival—
A series of explosions echoed in the distance. Several columns of smoke began to rise from somewhere in the middle of the village, some of them in frightening chemical colours.
For three full seconds, Naruto stared at them, dumbstruck.
"Morino Ibiki," he whispered under his breath, "you magnificent bastard."
Naruto set off again. He wasn't heading for the arena, which had sadly just become irrelevant. He wasn't off to find a senior ninja to give him instructions. He was running straight for the Third District, Route Fourteen, to follow Evacuation Plan Two. This time, there would be no sacrifices, he swore, even if he had to punch out a Demon Beast with his bare fists.
-o-
"Contestant, dispel now or I do not guarantee your survival."
Gaara ignored the judge. The sand over Hinata's heart cleared itself out of the way as the spinning tube began to descend unerringly onto the sarcophagus.
Hinata still couldn't move. Where was Naruto? If he didn't burst into the arena and rescue her now, it would be too late.
She could feel her mind going cold. Why was nobody moving? Maybe they were too far off to see exactly what was happening, but couldn't the Hokage, at least, tell that something wasn't right?
"Earth Element: Geode Co—"
Then there was just a scream. Gaara didn't even look up.
Naruto wasn't coming. Of course. Why would he? He cared about her, she was sure he did, but she wasn't
important, not next to his brilliant ideas and his incredible ambitions. He would get here when he got here, and he'd never even know how hard she'd tried.
She couldn't see Gaara's expression with the sun behind him. It was the second time today. Another image overlapped with Gaara's—much more powerful, much more intimidating, and infinitely more difficult to understand.
-o-
Hinata stood outside the main building of the Hyūga compound. Wary. Uncertain. Expecting anything and prepared for nothing. Her father never wasted his time bidding her farewell on missions. Considering how busy he'd been recently, she certainly hadn't expected him to do so for a mere exam.
"Good morning, Daughter."
"Good morning, Father."
He stood backlit by the morning sun, and she had no way of reading his mood and adjusting accordingly. To use the Byakugan now, in mid-conversation, would be rude, like going through someone's rucksack instead of just asking them if they'd remembered to pack enough rations this time.
"I have perused Neji's reports," Father told her, triggering a flicker of alarm. "It seems that your training results have been satisfactory."
"Thank you, Father."
His voice turned severe. "There is nothing praiseworthy about meeting the minimum requirements to be a Hyūga."
"O-Of course, Father," Hinata stammered. He was perfectly right. What had she been thinking, hoping for compliments for merely acceptable performance? Father expected her to excel. Anything less was, as ever, a disappointment.
Hinata's gaze drifted to the ground. She waited miserably to be dismissed.
"However," he continued, "a genin who meets the minimum requirements to be a Hyūga is superior to any genin who does not."
Hinata looked up, uncomprehending.
"Father?"
"Conduct yourself with the pride of the Hyūga, Daughter, and victory will be yours."
Those were his final words to her before he hurried back inside to resume his important business. At the time, they might as well have been in an alien language.
-o-
What did the pride of the Hyūga mean to Hinata?
Did it mean spending her last moments praying for a saviour who wasn't coming?
Did it mean struggling desperately against the inevitable, as she had been all her life?
Did it mean accepting her fate with grace?
Did it mean trying to leave a legacy, however small?
"Gaara," she said, "if you're going to kill me, there's something I need you to hear."
The tube stopped.
"Last words, Miss Hinata?" Gaara asked curiously. "I didn't think you'd be the type. Please, go ahead."
"Come closer," she said. "My throat hurts."
Gaara walked up to her and stood by her sarcophagus.
"Closer."
Gaara leaned over her body.
"What did you want me to hear, Miss Hinata?"
Hinata spoke what might or might not be her last words.
"You are within the range of my divination."
Hinata released chakra from all her front tenketsu at once.
Gaara yelped in pain and half-stumbled half-fell away from her as over a hundred chakra needles pierced his body. With the Byakugan off, Hinata couldn't tell if any of them hit his tenketsu, but she trusted in sheer probability. Maybe, just maybe, she'd given his next victim an opening.
Here on the edge between life and death, Hinata finally knew what the pride of the Hyūga meant to her. It meant always reaching for the sun beyond, no matter how far away or how short her reach.
"Ow. Ow ow ow." Gaara straightened up slowly. "That really hurts. I can't believe you hurt me. Do you have any idea how long it's been since somebody did that? I mean, it wasn't very nice that you did it by taking advantage of my good intentions, but on the other hand, we're ninja, so it's my own fault really. Now, you've had your last words, so let's finish–"
A series of explosions echoed in the distance. Several columns of smoke began to rise from what was likely the roof of the Hokage Tower, some of them in vivid signal-flare colours.
"Oh," Gaara said. Sand began to stream off Hinata. "Please excuse me. There's something I need to do."
The sand pooled together into a flat-topped cloud at his feet. He tapped it with his foot a couple of times to make sure it would take his weight, then got on.
"Don't worry, Miss Hinata," he added. "I definitely won't forget about killing you now."
He rose into the air, and Hinata mutely watched him float past the arena walls. It was the reason she was looking up when the Hokage's private box above her exploded into splinters.
