Sasuke struggled to keep his eyes open against the glare of green medical chakra, the shinobi doctor's hand hovering less than an inch from his face. The hand pulled away, revealing the doctor's Anbu mask, and began the same procedure on Hanako. She was laying back on a hospital bed, her unmasked face as pale as the sheets. He remembered watching Kakashi take her away during the preliminaries and having no answer when everyone asked him about it. For once, he was just as clueless about the Hatakes as everyone else. It wasn't a nice feeling.
He turned to look at his sensei where he sat on the other side of Hanako's bed, his head propped in his hands and an eerily blank expression on his face.
"What's going on?" He asked, only half expecting an answer. "What's wrong with Hana?"
Kakashi's one visible eye flicked from him to the Anbu doctor. The masked shinobi sighed before removing his hand from Hanako's face.
"You were right, Captain," his voice sounded tired. "She has the Sharingan."
What!?
Sasuke leapt to his feet, the folding chair clattering to the floor with the motion. "What are you talking about? How—what—how is that possible?"
Kakashi let out a long, tired breath. With a single gesture, he dismissed the doctor. When they were alone, he pulled a paper tag from within his jounin vest and stuck it to the wall. One of Hanako's privacy seals, then. Sasuke froze under the combined weight of his sensei's gaze and chakra, the latter a comforting layer of static which dampened his anxiety.
"Sasuke," Kakashi began seriously. "What I'm about to tell you is a village secret. It absolutely cannot leave this room."
Sasuke swallowed thickly, nodding his head.
"Hanako isn't my daughter."
What?
"Not by blood, anyway," Kakashi ran a hand through his silver hair. "She was born outside the village—raised there, until she was five years old. You knew all that, though." Yeah. Everyone did. "The truth is, your brother and I found her in the woods while on a mission. Her mother had been killed—pretty savagely—and she was wandering around looking for help. We have no idea who her family are, if she has a clan, or if there's anyone out there still looking for her. After weeks of searching, we found no traces of combat or habitation within a fifty-mile radius of the village, which raised the question of why they came so close in the first place. Although," he sighed and leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. "The answer to that's pretty clear, now, huh?"
Sasuke followed his sensei's gaze down to Hanako's sleeping face. He knew her mother had been killed, but he'd never asked about it—he wasn't that insensitive—and the new information suddenly raised a whole new batch of questions.
"Wait, is she an Uchiha?"
Kakashi shrugged. "If every person born with a Sharingan is an Uchiha, then, yes. All I can say for sure is that it's very likely her mother knew she might have one and was probably trying to bring her to the village for the clan's protection."
Sasuke stepped forward, head bowed as his mind ran circles in his head. "Did—did she know?"
"Come on, squirt, you know that's not something she'd keep secret."
Yeah. Yeah, he knew that. But...
He looked up at the man who'd been all but forced to take him into his home; the man who, until two seconds ago, was the only other person in the village with a Sharingan—the only outsider his clan trusted to keep one. Those had been Hanako's arguments when convincing them both to accept the Hokage's decision to place Sasuke in the Hatake's care—a decision she most definitely had a hand in. Four years of living with the weirdest father-daughter pair had lessened his heartache some, but not entirely. When he thought of what might have happened had Hanako made her Sharingan known from the start—
His blood ran cold. She would have been there, that night, targeted by that man. No. It was better this way. This way, he still had someone waiting for him to come home; someone who made him bentos and told jokes at his expense. She didn't have to be an Uchiha to be that someone, but now that he knew she was...
A hand ruffled his short hair and he looked up at the man who'd somehow crossed the room without him noticing.
"Mah, squirt," Kakashi chuckled dryly. "No need to look so glum."
"What are we going to do?" Sasuke asked with clenched fists. "If people find about this, she'll be a target."
"She's already a target, but I get what you're saying." Sasuke watched as Kakashi aged ten years in an instant, exhaustion and worry dragging down what little of his face he could see. "It'll be a tough sell, for sure, but..."
"But what?"
"But~," Kakashi drawled, his momentary vulnerability already being covered by a saccharine smile. "Lucky for us, her Sharingan isn't normal."
Sasuke waited for the jounin to elaborate. When he made to leave without saying anything else, he reached out and caught the man's sleeve.
"How isn't it normal?"
"Hmm? Oh, didn't I say? How forgetful of me." Ugh. Sasuke hated when Kakashi acted like this. It was his go-to tactic to avoid talking about or doing uncomfortable things. "Well, you see, squirt, her Sharingan is blue."
What.
"That's impossible."
Kakashi was already nodding along. "Yep, no, I agree with you. If she hadn't looked me dead in the eye, I'd be saying the same thing." He ruffled Sasuke's hair again, a terrible habit. "I have no idea what's going on, squirt. I'd tell you if I did. The most important thing now is controlling the flow of information. So, while I'm off reporting to the Hokage, you're going to impress upon a certain Hyuuga the true value of silence."
Sasuke stared blankly up at Kakashi for a solid minute before his meaning sank in. "Neji saw it?"
"Mah, I wonder? I'd certainly hope not."
Right. That was the whole point, wasn't it? To make sure Neji said nothing, even if he saw something.
"I can do that."
"I never doubted you, squirt."
🐶🐶🐶
When Hanako opened her eyes, it was to blinding white light. As her eyes adjusted, she slowly became aware that she was in a hospital room, wearing a hospital gown and laying on a hospital bed.
Why though?
She wasn't hurt, as far as she could tell. Limbs: functional. Pain: nonexistent. Her eyes were itchy, but that was probably from being asleep for god knows how long. Rubbing at them absently, she got to her feet and pressed a hand onto her chest. Oh. Right. It had become such a reflex that she forgot she could only access her seal like that when wearing clothing she'd made herself. Oh, well. Her clothes were probably around here somewhere.
Except they weren't.
Huh.
She looked around for a nurse call button but found none. Strange. Why would she be in the Anbu ward? That didn't make any sense. The window was barred and reinforced, and the door was locked from the outside with no indoor mechanics. Anxiously, she wracked her memory for anything she might have said or done to warrant this kind of caution.
Nothing. What the ever-living hell?
Now properly miffed, she set her sights on air vent. It was too small for most Anbu level jounin to use, but she was the littlest genin. If she could get the vent cover off, she should be able to escape through the ventilation shafts.
If.
Ah, but the walls were chakra repellant. Boo. She'd have to get creative, then.
Activating her seal, she pulled a spool of silk thread from the ink on her palm. Running her chakra through it, she sent it up into the air, poised like a snake, and looped it around the screw heads holding the vent in place. It took very little effort to saw through the screws and remove the vent, and Hanako idly wondered how the heck they managed to keep actual Anbu locked in.
Oh. Right. They stripped them.
Not everyone had seals. She sometimes forgot that.
Once safely inside the vents. She carefully crawled along on her belly, listening at every opening to help orient herself. It was probably an hour before she managed to reach the public side of the hospital, and even longer before she managed to find a secluded place to exit. Of course, she couldn't just wander around in a dusty hospital gown. One pilfered set of scrubs later, and she was on the move. They were obscenely big on her, but the hospital wasn't very busy and civilians knew better than to comment on the strangeness of ninja children.
While she knew she should probably flag down someone who could tell her what was going on, she didn't want to risk limiting her hard-won freedom so soon. So, she decided to pay a visit to anyone she knew on the roster instead.
Rock Lee.
The instant her eyes landed on that name, she was suddenly very aware of her situation. Damn it! How the hell had she managed to forget about Lee? How, when she could conjure up that fight with perfect clarity, every grain of sand in high definition?
Disgusted with herself, she headed for his room, dragging her feet ever so slightly. She didn't even have any flowers. Should she have stopped at the gift shop? Before her musings could stop her, she'd reached the door.
There was a familiar chakra waiting inside.
Oh, geeze.
She pushed open the door, not at all surprised to see Gaara standing there, his sand whirling around the room like a natural disaster waiting to happen.
"Gaara."
He flinched at the sound of his name and he turned around, clearly surprised to see her. She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, never taking her eyes off his face.
"Gaara, what are you doing?"
His chakra roiled violently under hers, bucking wildly against any attempts to soothe. Oblivious, Lee slept peacefully.
"What's wrong, Gaara?" He stepped back as she approached and she stopped, hands spread placatingly. "What happened?"
His green eyes were wide as he took in her appearance, and she realized she probably looked a little weird. With a sigh, she pulled off the doctor's mask covering her face, letting the Suna genin see her face for the first time.
"Gaara, talk to me. I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."
He let her step closer, but she stopped just within his reach. He was skittish and uneasy, and she didn't want to provoke him while Lee lay helpless only a few feet away.
"Gaara?"
His chakra engulfed her, surrounding her with pain and confusion and something else too big to name. It was overwhelming and sad and she felt tears welling up in her eyes from the force of it.
"Oh, Gaara, it's ok," she reached out and took his hand in hers, privately thankful he allowed her the small overture. "It'll be alright, Gaara, I promise."
She did her best to bolster her words with her chakra, but the weight of his anguish was hard to bear. She could feel her own anger and sorrow rising up within her in response, feelings made tender by Lee's silent presence.
Damn it, she was supposed to be the adult! How was she going to calm Gaara down if her own emotions were running rampant?
Was it puberty? Had she finally reached that age, again? Wonderful.
And, now she was crying in earnest. Great. Just perfect.
Before she could truly register what she was doing, she had already wrapped her arms around Gaara for the second time, crying into his shirt. Again. His chakra swirled around her, carrying notes of concern along with the overbearing anger and confusion which had set her off. Ah, she was really making a muck of things, wasn't she? At this rate, she'd be 'that crying girl' in Gaara's mind forever.
That would be lame.
"I'm sorry," she sniffed as she pulled back. "I did it again—!" Gaara pulled her back against him, his chakra flaring in agitation. "Gaara, what—?"
"Hey, let Hana-chan go!"
Oh. Oh no. Naruto.
She'd completely forgot about this part! Ah, what should she do? Her grip on Gaara tightened as his chakra clashed with Naruto's, the two boys likely unaware of what they were doing.
But Hanako wasn't.
Naruto's chakra was wilder than Gaara's. It was more indignant than angry but just as confused. It was also rougher and harder to handle, its edges abrasive as it tried to invade the bubble Hanako had made for herself in Gaara's embrace.
Sigh. It was time to mediate.
Gaara resisted when she tried to step away, so she used her chakra to build a wall between the two jinchuriki. It was harder than it should have been, with the effort leaving her panting slightly. They really wanted to fight, didn't they?
"Geeze, Naruto, can't you see we're interrupting something?" Shikamaru! "Let's just leave them alone. We can see Lee later. It's not like he's going anywhere."
Ouch.
"But, but Shikamaru!" Naruto's voice was high pitched and whiny. Hanako could just picture his scandalized expression. "We can't just leave them like this! What about Kiba?"
Excuse me?
Hanako was hard pressed to keep her annoyance from her chakra, but some of it must have come through since Gaara let her step away from him.
"What about Kiba?" She asked darkly.
Naruto looked away guiltily while Shikamaru only sighed. He gripped the shorter blond by the back of his shirt and dragged him out behind him, calling out an apology behind him while Naruto squirmed like a cat in a sack.
Ugh.
Hanako rubbed at her eyes, wiping away errant tears. Being a teenager had sucked the first time, but it looked like it would be worse this time around. Did shinobi training amplify teenage idiocy? If so, that would explain so much.
"I'm sorry, Gaara," she said with a wan smile as she took a seat on the edge of Lee's bed. "It must seem like all I ever do is cry."
The red head didn't respond, his gaze locked on the still open door. His chakra, however, settled a bit. "Who is Kiba?"
She looked up at him in surprise, her hands wrapping absently around one of Lee's. It was cold. "He's the Inuzuka from the exams. He had a dog with him?"
Gaara hummed quietly in response and she could feel his gaze on her as she placed a hand on Lee's forehead. It was cold, too.
"You are sad."
She huffed a little, mirthless laugh. "Yeah, well, that's my name, isn't it? 'Grieving child'. May as well live up to it."
Oops, he didn't like that. His chakra was so angry it was a miracle he wasn't growling.
"Of course, I'm sad," she continued in a rush. "My friend is hurt and there's nothing I can do to help."
Oh no. He didn't like that either.
Of course, he wouldn't! He was the one who hurt Lee! Gah!
"A-and," she added stiffly. "I had to watch my friends fight. You both fought so hard and all I could do was watch as you hurt each other. That will always make me sad."
His chakra lost some of its bite, but it still swirled around her, catching at the edges of her mind like a desert wind. Then he and his chakra were gone, a scattering of sand on the hospital floor all that remained.
What a drama king.