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When he awoke, he lay in his training grounds. The grass whispered against his cheek, causing a wince because it seared into his skin. It was almost, almost worse than leaving his timeline.
Hikaru tried to move.
Immediately, that attempt became followed by an agonizing, nonstop ringing in his ears. His hands shot up, covering his ears, no matter how much the attempt hurt. And it did- Hikaru would rate it a solid 6 or 7 on the pain scale.
His breath echoed in his ears, and even moving to breathe caused a spear of agony to cascade angrily down his spine and into his toes.
He could feel a presence curl into his head, but Hikaru couldn't bring himself there. Not when he was so firmly rooted in the present, in the waves of pain that washed over him worse than any scar he'd recieved.
Kurama.
He barely got a reply- knowing that eventually Kurama would be fully gone from his body, from his mind.
Even then, he still didn't want to let go.
"Na... Naruto."
And then Kurama was gone, fully gone, only a tendril of his chakra left that Hikaru was sure was being used to locate him.
Hikaru fell to the side, curling in a ball, unable to even scream from the torture that pounded into his head, burned itself into his nerves. Every rustle of a leaf even meters upwards echoed and bounced in his brain, and the light seared itself into his eyes.
He choked down sobs without even knowing it.
And, eventually, when the pain was too much to bear Hikaru couldn't even faint. He was reduced to a single speck of dust that was being stomped on by the entire universe, and he couldn't even scream.
Footsteps in the distance.
Hikaru winced at the assault on his ears, hating himself for even being like this in the first place. He wondered who would see him.
They grew closer- the crashing of grass combining with the rustling of the leaves and making the world's most angonizing symphony in his head.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't move at all-
He was picked up.
And Hikaru let himself faint.
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When he awoke, he was in a hospital room.
Kurama was gone.
Was his first reminder.
The second was the faint buzz of electricity that hummed in his ears- a soft flickering that both hurt and annoyed him.
It was silent. So silent.
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There were no visitors allowed in this wing of the hospital room. And, apparently the poison permanetly 'crippled' him by giving him heightened everything. Or, at least, that's what he told the nurses, who weren't allowed to draw blood by the order of the Hokage.
He knew what really went on.
Kurama had fully left him, heading onto Naruto because that's who he was drawn to. Hikaru had felt it over the course of the past two weeks, knowing that their time was limited but he didn't even have a coherent enough goodbye.
He didn't want to do anything. The one that sent him here was gone, just like everybody else was gone and they would always leave him behind-
Hikaru took a deep breath. In, out. Remember why he was here, and then he could leave.
It would be okay. He had to tell himself this otherwise he would've jumped off of the Yondaime's head a long, long time ago. So it would be okay, and he would be okay and he would be completely fine without Kurama or anybody.
He had to be.
There was the fate of this entire timeline resting on his thin shoulders.
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The Hokage had been assasinated while he was in the hospital. Hikaru couldn't bring himself to mourn or even go to the funeral, so he was there for his team and Kakashi when they crashed at his place after the funeral- Kakashi, like before, left before they all fell asleep.
Hikaru couldn't sleep, just like he couldn't breathe at times because it was so loud and everything was off. It had all changed.
So he made a seal to fix it, maybe dampen everything a little. He would just keep it on him and be able to take it off anytime because there is no way that it would be activated all the time.
Then Hikaru had put it on, and absolutely nothing had changed. Sure, the colors were a little less bright but he'd been used to that. Sure, the sounds had faded a little bit but touching even the countertop felt like a million kunai were being stabbed into his skin.
Hikaru sighed, sitting at the table and starting on another seal. It was late at night, the genin still sleeping in the living room next to him. It was so- so frusterating but he had nothing to take out his anger on.
Yeah, some people would listen to his rant but there was nobody that could actually understand. The entire fate of the world was on his shoulders and while it didn't exactly rest heavily, there were enough bloodstains on the palms of his hands already and couldn't he just catch a break?!
He slammed his head against the table, uncaring for the hurt that it caused on him and his ears. Maybe if he just dulled his pain setting a little bit, it would help.
So he could make a seal garnered towards recieving pain, thus dulling it a little bit. But the only problem is that if kunai ever hit him... No, Hikaru wouldn't let that happen.
He would make that seal, get this over with, then go find out why the hell Sound nin decided to kidnap his genin.
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Hikaru would be the first to admit that he, currently, had anger issues. The next to admit this would be three training grounds worth of torn training dummies. And then the tree that he'd stupidly hit.
So, yes, maybe he did have some issues. And maybe Sasuke being kidnapped released a torrent of anger he didn't even know he had. But, for the time being he was bidding Naruto goodbye so that he and Jiraiya- whom of which he still couldn't look at- could go find Tsunade.
Hikaru didn't even think on how painful it would be to see Tsunade.
He had more problems right now. Like the person that kept tailing him.
"Why are you following me?" Hikaru turned swiftly, catching an ANBU member.
"You noticed." An ANBU stepped out of the shadows- familiar in some way that Hikaru couldn't recall.
"Yes, of course I would notice an ANBU member watching me for the past day." Hikaru said, letting some of his irritation leak into his tone. "What do you need?"
"Danzo-sama wants to see you."
"Well, Danzo-sama is in prison." Hikaru hissed. "What good would him wanting to see me do?"
"He knows."
Knows?
Hikaru's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"It's not appropriate to talk about where others could listen." The ANBU said, and Hikaru let himself be whisked away to a prison cell.
Danzo sat there, looking mildly worse for wear. "Usagi, dismissed." The ANBU left.
"Why did you want to see me, Danzo?" Hikaru asked, shoving down the oh-god-im-going-to-be-outed-to-everybody that rose in his stomach and filled his mind.
"I know about your little predicament." Danzo muttered, his eyes shining with disgusting greed.
Hikaru sat down next to the bars, keeping the appearance of not really caring. "How?"
"A little birdie told me." He chuckled, raspy because of his lengthy and likely luxurious stay in prison. "Anyway, I wanted to offer you a deal."
"Go on." Hikaru motioned for him to go on, a part of his mind listening, another part hunting for who could possibly be the 'bird', per Danzo's words.
"Get me out of here and let me start ROOT again, and I won't spill about you being from the future."
Oh, now this... was the perfect excuse.
"No." Hikaru kindly smiled- albiet a bit toothily and he was leaking killing intent. "I deny."
"Why?" Danzo asked him, rage very, very clear in his eyes especially for someone who was excellent at reading people.
"There's nothing in it for me. You torture and traumatize Konoha's civillains and people from the surrounding nations 'for Konoha' but it's just feeding into problems! For example, take Tenzou. You traumatized him- and, oh wait, what about Sai? He was unable to understand basic human emotions because you're a selfish idiot who wants loyalty! Not to mention your idiotic rivalry with the world's shittest Hokage!" Hikaru said, counting and doing quick math in his head. Okay, so he'd been ready for this argument for awhile.
"Selfish idiot? I'll have you know-" Danzo began to interject, only to pause when he saw the hand that had landed on Hikaru's kunai holster. He was absolutely powerless here- chakra restrained and in the middle of 'nowhere' in Konoha's highly sealed prison.
"No! You know absolutely nothing about the future of this world and you're a main reason why it all went to absolute shit! You just sat there, traumatizing shinobi for fun when it caused problems! You caused the Uchiha Clan Massacre when there could have been another way! And you have those eyes because you are a sick, power-hungry fuck with no thoughts other than 'must corrupt Konoha's government for no logical reason'." Hikaru quickly summoned a clone. "Have fun being tortured from the immorality of your actions. Bye."
He disappeared from the area, heading immediately towards his training grounds because being like this for him was not good.
And not good led to killing people.
Not to mention he needed to hunt down a little birdie, so to speak.
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And there we go! Hikaru finally snaps and wabam! Character progress! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter because I had fun writing it.( (12/07 note): This is mostly unedited as I'll be busy most of the week- I have a few school events coming up (semester tests, etc) so chapters will be late for a bit.
Original: 11/29/2020
Edited: 12/07/2020
This chapter contains 1691 words