Part I: Vitiate

By: Prosely

Vitiate: verb: spoil or impair the quality or efficiency of an object or person; To debase or pervert it from its original purpose.

Note: Eternal thanks to my Beta, Amarxlen for this piece. She is a Queen and I could never finish anything without her.

The room was stifling.

Hinata could feel the sweat pooling at the base of her neck, threatening to stain the beautiful ivory of the autumn kimono she was wearing, the heavy silk made for weather far cooler than the still summery heat of the outdoors.

The tea room was small and traditional, only about five tatami mats wide. The mats themselves were fresh and green, still stiff against Hinata's knees as she bowed her head in thanks for the tea served to her by Ayumi, the other acolyte, as the girl finished her ceremony.

Natural wood beams supported the ceiling, each log carefully chosen for the beauty of the individual wood grain. The room was dark in the way that all shoji rooms were, the paper walls letting in a soft amber light, but with the lack of any air flowing in from the windows that faced the gardens outside, it only made the heat worse.

Hinata's legs ached beneath her. She had been sitting seiza for the better part of the day, and though she had been practicing the traditional kneeling position for the better part of her life, at this point, her muscles were begging for relief. Her body threatened to collapse whenever she had to rise or genuflect back down on one gracefully raised knee.

Ayumi's hands wavered in front of Hinata, accidentally sloshing some of the dirty water used in the ceremony onto the floor, though the other guests present politely pretended not to notice. After a long, tense moment, Ayumi gingerly placed pot back down, returning her hands to her lap and bowing modestly, thanking those who had come to the final tea ceremony of Miyazaki village's Autumn Festival.

The Hyuuga responded with a deep bow of her own, grateful that she would finally be able to stretch her legs again and return to the cool darkness of the back room, where she had been working for the better part of the day. Her main job had been to prepare tea for the extra guests who trickled to the gardens from the much larger festival still going on Miyazaki's main street.

But the celebration was almost over by the sound of it, and as she glanced out the open window, Hinata's lavender eyes picked up the infinitesimal rays of amber twilight beginning to form amidst the carefully groomed trees outside. Though the tea would no longer be served and there would be a short break, the rest of the festival revelries would recommence shortly after the sun set.

Hinata rose to her feet, terribly glad that her knees didn't emit any large creaking noises as she did so, and padded after Ayumi over to the back room once the other guests had bowed at her and left.

Inside the dark, far cooler room, Ayumi's pretty face was tight, her hands again folded primly in her lap as she was admonished by a thunderous looking Miyuki-sensei.

"—and you still hesitate too much when you fold the fukusa. It is a simple, elegant motion. There is only grace. Perhaps you should watch Hikari next time she performs the ceremony, at least she doesn't look like a cow." The elderly grandmother sniped. Ayumi saw Hinata, known to the acolytes and Miyuki-sensei as Hikari, enter the room and deliberately averted her eyes, lips pursing in a frown.

The Hyuuga sighed sadly, turning to the small table she and Miyuki-sensei used to prepare the extra cups of tea. Though the kunoichi and Ayumi had gotten along quite well at first, their friendship had quickly fractured under Miyuki-sensei's consistent criticism and comparisons between the two. And it didn't help when Ayumi realized that the girl who claimed to only be a distant branch member relation of the Hyuuga, and supposedly had only had limited training, was actually far more skilled in the ceremony than she was.

But Hinata couldn't tell anyone that she had been practicing the ancient art of the tea ceremony since she could walk, as the heiress to an ancient shinobi clan who was expected to perform for some of the most important people in the Land of Fire.

The village of Miyazaki was small compared to other towns the Hyuuga had been assigned to for long-term missions, but she liked it all the same. There was something beautiful about the intentionally flawed pottery they made, the rippling creptomillas that swayed in the hot breeze of late summer, the thick river that rolled through the sleepy countryside like a silvery ribbon. The town was somnolent and peaceful, tucked away in the mountains, the precise sort of place that Hinata imagined when she pictured the ancient villages the Land of Tea was famous for.

She was here on a solitary mission to investigate the strange disappearances of wealthy businessmen from the Land of Fire who had been trading here and in the surrounding area. With her background, pretending to be a tea acolyte under the famous Miyuki-sensei was an easy cover for her to uphold, even though it left her isolated time and again. The other townspeople ostracized her for her clearly foreign appearance, and the other girls studying tea hated her for quickly becoming one of Miyuki's top students.

Hinata didn't mind that so much. This mission had become more of a retreat for her, where she could just fall into the meditative motions of the ceremony and the easy lifestyle in Miyazaki as she waited for another merchant caravan to come in from Konoha, her role firmly established after a month of hard work.

Though she did miss her friends at home sometimes, like now, Hinata thought, listening to an uproarious sound of laughter in the distance. Kiba and Shino would've never let her sit out on a festival like this. And maybe if she had been back in Konoha, she would've even been able to convince Neji to come along, she mused with a small, private smile. Or maybe she would've finally gotten the courage to ask Naruto to go with her, if he had returned from his training with Jiraiya by now. She sighed, as she often did when she thought of her life-long crush, lavender eyes glazing over as she stared at the wall and mechanically continued to clean.

"Miyuki-sensei!" Another girl appeared at the shoji door, interrupting Hinata's daydream of Naruto winning her a giant stuffed bear at one of the festival vendor's games. Strands of dark green hair had fallen loose from the newcomer's elaborate up-do, and her face was tight with worry. Her sudden and distressed appearance made Miyuki-sensei bristle with displeasure. Eri was the other new acolyte, and always managed to get into some sort of trouble any time there was a big ceremony. Hinata tried to look focused on her methodic scrubbing of the tea bowls as she listened to their conversation.

"What is it Eri?" Miyuki-sensei asked abruptly, using her cane to help herself to her feet, apparently finished with scolding Ayumi. The older girl rose from her seat to stand next to Hinata and silently start rinsing out the tea bowls the Hyuuga heiress had wiped of the matcha's bitter green residue. The older girl's pretty mouth was twisted in an ugly grimace, as if Eri reeked of sour onions.

"Always a little fool." Ayumi muttered, and Hinata kept her gaze focused on the water running over her hands. Eri thankfully didn't hear, as she was too busy bowing over and over again in a frantic apology to their sensei.

"I'm so sorry Miyuki-sensei, but there's a guest outside, he says he has been waiting for tea." Eri said, and their elderly teacher made a derisive snorting sound in response.

"Well tell him that we're sorry, but we have finished for the autumn festival. If he's so interested in having festival tea, tell him to come back in the spring. He should come earlier if he wants to be served."

"I'm sorry Miyuki-sensei! He was—he was very scary! I wasn't sure if he was a noble and I—I couldn't say no! He's already come in! I'm so sorry!" Eri said, twisting her fukusa in her hand, making Miyuki lift her cane threateningly. Eri immediately let the special kerchief fall back to her side, moving to wring her hands instead, biting her lower lip, her whole body trembling.

Hinata subconsciously checked on her own fukusa, running a free finger down the length of red silk. It was still carefully tucked in onto the side of her kimono, denoting her as a server of the sacred tea.

"You'll be the death of me, you foolish child!" Miyuki sighed and gave her cane one last shake before turning back to where Ayumi and Hinata worked over the small bamboo washbasins.

"But I won't be known as the tea-master who retracted an invitation because of an idiot girl." She said, and Hinata felt a sharp jab through the thick fabric of her kimono. She turned, realizing it was the sensei's short cane, digging deeply into the side of her hip.

"Hikari, you still look halfway presentable." Miyuki said, glancing at the Hyuuga's face. The teacher seemed unconcerned with the gleam of sweat across the kunoichi's pale features and the widening of Hinata's large lavender eyes in distress. The shy girl opened her mouth to protest before clamping it shut abruptly. It wouldn't be much use when their sensei was in one of these moods.

"You're sure it's just the one guest?" The old teacher asked, whirling back on Eri. The poor girl nodded frantically. "Yes Miyuki-sensei! Hikari-chan, I'm so sorry!" The green-haired acolyte said with another deep bow to each of them, her fingers still fluttering in the air like lost birds.

"It's okay Eri." Hinata softly replied, ignoring the aching in her legs and back as she stood again. At least if she was serving the tea, she would be distracted from the stiffness of her limbs by the intense focus the ceremony demanded. And with the sunlight fading, the well-lit room would at least be a little cooler, she thought to herself, trying to maintain a positive attitude.

Ayumi moved to grab the ceremony tools with an over dramatic sigh and eye roll in Eri's direction before the sour-faced girl brought the now clean bowls back into the room. She bowed as she slid open the door and entered, her right foot stepping gracefully onto the tatami mat with the ease of long practice. Miyuki shuffled over to make sure that Hinata looked appropriate, running over her kimono and fukusa with a critical eye before she waved the younger woman on.

"Go now!" Her teacher said, and Hinata moved to kneel again, placing her fan in front of knees and touching her hands to the floor in a deep bow before the door as Miyuki expertly slid it open with a snap of her cane. Ayumi returned with another bow to the guest within, passing Hinata's kowtowed form with a sniff of disdain.

Hinata counted to two before she rose, keeping her eyes downturned in the direction of the tatami mat as she slid into the room, bowing towards the scroll in the alcove, and then to where the hot water was still steaming in the small charcoal stove Ayumi had been using last.

Thankfully, no one had yet poured out the water from Ayumi's ceremony a few minutes earlier. Miyuki really hadn't seemed all that surprised by Eri's pronouncement, and Hinata wasn't either. It was very like the daimyo and nobility of the Tea Country to just appear and demand things based on a whim.

As she stood to glide over to the tea service, Hinata kept her eyes diverted to the ground, partially to cover their color and partially for decorum's sake. She noted that the nobleman's feet were covered in black tabi socks that matched the dark color of his pants and charcoal colored kimono.

The skin she could see was pale, his hands large and elegantly boned, sitting comfortably on top of his well-muscled thighs. The skin on his hands marked him as fairly young, considering that most of the men she served tea to were well into their fifties or sixties at the earliest. His fingernails were immaculate, for a man's, though Hinata had come to expect that of the well-bred noblemen who enjoyed tea ceremony almost as much as their wives did.

Gently, Hinata offered those large hands the last of the sweets Miyuki-sensei had prepared for the Autumn Festival ceremony from the plate Ayumi had set next to the hot water pot.

"Okashi o'dozo." The Hyuuga murmured, the traditional words falling from her lips with the grace of habit, folding her own hands back in her lap as she waited. The man reached forward to accept the offering in the comfortable formality of silence, placing the okashi, or tea sweet, on his small tea paper and beginning to eat it, cutting it into small, dainty pieces with the provided wooden knife. Hinata saw his finger pause for a brief moment as she bowed again, still keeping her eyes from his face as she began with the delicate process of making tea.

The rest of the world faded away then, each motion demanding all of her attention and skill. One of the good things about being a shinobi and learning to use the most deadly of weapons with a dexterity that belied her appearance was that it made things like tea ceremony far easier to perform. Her inherent grace with the fukusa and the tea scoop came from the natural inclination to move with precision. The silk folded easily in her hands, and the lacquer wood of the tea holder and tea scoop moved with each gentle nudge of her fingers.

She measured the bright green of the matcha out into the bowl in two small scoops, and deftly poured the water into the bowl with the wooden pitcher, returning the excess liquid to the teapot and properly venerating the gods of nature as she did so. Then she was finally lifting the chasen, or tea whisk, up from where it sat on the table in front of her to begin the delicate process of whisking the powder into a frothy liquid.

This was the most important part of the ceremony, though for her, it was fairly easy. After all, one familiar with the gentle fist technique had no difficulty in moving the chasen in perfect circles to achieve her desired result. A perfect cup of tea had no bubbles at the top, only smooth green foam that was still hot at the lips when one drank it.

Hinata finished and put the chasen back, face up in the spot it belonged. Then she carefully lifted the tea bowl and placed it on the upper right corner of her tatami mat, bowing to her invisible guest in a silent offering of the tea she had so meticulously prepared.

The man reached for the cup, and Hinata was again assaulted by the strange paradox overwhelming her vision. Pale white hands reached out from the darkness of his kimono for the cup before it vanished again, slender fingers settling in front of him so that he could examine the foam before drinking, as decorum dictated.

She couldn't see what he was doing, but she could hear him—the gentle slosh of the tea on the side of his cup as he peered inside the bowl, then the movement of the matcha and the soft whisper of his clothes as he brought the liquid to his lips. A small slurp signaled the end of his quick consumption.

He brought the cup back to his lap, once more inspecting the inside of it, admiring the effort that went into its creation.

"Almost perfect." A deep voice said, and it was perhaps, one of the most beautiful voices Hinata had ever heard. Despite the hoarseness from clear disuse, it still reverberated throughout the room like the low resonance of a bell—

And it was terrifying in its sudden familiarity to her. His accent was so evidently Fire Country it was almost as if he was emphasizing it on purpose, as were the measured syllables he pronounced, reminiscent of the ways that all the clan elders spoke: overly formal with flawless intonation.

Hinata's hands jerked in her lap, even as she took a deep breath to appear as calm as possible-as calm as she suddenly didn't feel.

Her pale, lavender eyes were the only part of her that moved, frantically roving over tea instruments in front of her as she considered which of them she could use as weapons. She had a handful of poisoned senbon she always secretly hid within her tabi socks for emergencies, but he would see her going for them unless she waited for precisely the right moment.

She knew that voice. She knew it well enough to realize that she was dead if she so much as blinked wrong.

Itachi Uchiha, the Itachi Uchiha: most famous missing nin in the Fire Country, was kneeling a few arms lengths away from her, as if participating in small village tea ceremonies was something he regularly did.

Though she had only met him a handful of times in her childhood, he had the sort of voice you couldn't forget, particularly when the last time you had spoken with him was within a week of his murdering his entire clan.

Hinata remembered. It had been on her sixth birthday. He had come to deliver her gift on behalf of the Uchiha, as one heir to another.

The memory was so old, it felt like water in her mind, quickly slipping out of her grasp. All she could remember was that voice, and that tenebrous presence that even made her father bow his head in cool, marked respect.

She exhaled slowly as she listened to the sound of hands turning the tea bowl and examining each side carefully. Perhaps he hadn't recognized her yet—he had gone along with the entire charade of ceremony already.

The missing nin was far enough away that he would notice if she tried to move to incapacitate him, but close enough that she could hear his deep, steady breathing as he watched her. Hinata was hyper-aware of his terrible Stygian eyes sliding over her skin, though when she delicately felt for an impression of chakra in her surroundings, she found no more than the average citizen's. He was an expert at masking it, so much that she hadn't detected him, even with her above average sensitivity.

She wanted to groan and hit herself. How did she not know he was here?! Neji would personally try to disown her from the Hyuuga if he ever found out about this.

That was assuming she ever saw Neji again—and if she left this room alive.

The thought was sobering, and Hinata shifted uncomfortably on her knees, her head still downturned as she considered her options. Her inner loyal leaf nin told her she had to try and capture the man beside her immediately, no matter what the cost, though her mind was frantically telling her all the reasons why that was a terrible idea. She had no back up, she had no plan, and she certainly didn't have any weapons beside her hands and the senbon tucked in the delicate cotton of her tabi.

But maybe if she just surprised him—

"Please don't." Itachi's voice surprised her again, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his large, beautiful hands gently place the cup back down in front of him.

"Pardon me?" She asked, trying to sound demure, as if she wasn't just plotting the seven different ways she could debilitate him.

"Please do not fling boiling water at me, roll to your left, activate your byakugan, and try to incapacitate me. You will fail." The missing nin said, sounding decidedly bored. Hinata had to fight the blush threatening to surface on the skin of her cheeks as she mechanically reached out for more of the boiling water with the scoop to prepare another cup of tea. It was the custom, since he had yet to turn the bowl twice before returning it to her, signaling that he desired another serving.

How did he know that was the exact plan she had been running through in her mind?

She felt his caliginous gaze even more acutely now, trained on every tense centimeter of her hand as she gracefully poured water into the bowl to rinse it out, waiting for her to flex the wrong muscle to give him the excuse he needed to kill her.

"I'm not sure what you mean sir." She wasn't sure how she was keeping her voice steady, short of a miraculous control she only barely managed to hold onto, forcing herself to remain as polite as she could.

"I'm only a distant branch relation of the Hyuuga clan. My byakugan has been sealed off from me." She said softly, though she refrained from disrupting her delicate scooping of the matcha into the cup with a gesture to her covered forehead. She had purposefully gotten a fake branch house tattoo placed there, with just enough chakra to make it look real to other shinobi, and kept a silk headband carefully tied over the markings to avoid close inspection.

She would just keep playing her role until he tried to attack her, she thought. She might have a chance if he moved first and got close enough to her.

Again, Hinata felt his penetrating eyes on her kimono, and her skin itched, as if his sharingan was burning through the many layers of silk and cotton to scorch her flesh.

She took a deep breath to prevent her hands from shaking and delicately replaced the tea-holder and the tea scoop before reaching for the water pitcher again, trying not to think about how his strange smoky smell was permeating the room. It reminded her of heavy temple incense mixed with blood and burnt earth, overwhelming her senses and making her mind fight to keep her limbs steady.

"You're different then the Hyuuga Hinata I remember." The man continued, ignoring her comment completely. Hinata realized he wasn't even going to attempt to respond to any of her lies. She said nothing in response, even as she finished pouring the second round of water over the matcha and reached again for the chaisen.

"I'm sorry, my name is Hikari. And I don't know you." She couldn't see his face, but Hinata just knew, somewhere deep in her heart, that the man was smirking.

"You were far too young for us to have been…properly acquainted." He said, and the deep rumbling in his voice reminded her of wood crackling in a fire. "But we were raised within similar circumstances." She mutely continued to whisk the tea into the requisite green froth. Itachi paused as if studying her technique, and Hinata's stomach dropped as she got the sickly feeling he was using the sharingan to do so, memorizing her movements.

"I didn't expect to see the Hyuuga heiress here, so far from home." He continued after a long moment, the heat that had been so intently focused on her hand vanishing. Hinata's wrist stilled over the tea cup, a second longer than necessary as she pulled the whisk from the matcha's green surface. She paused before moving to set the cup down at the upper right corner of her tatami mat again, making a decision.

"I'm a heiress n-no longer." She said softly, knowing the moment he said her name that the game was over. And he might as well realize she was worthless as a hostage, aside from the value in her Byakugan.

She wasn't wearing any sort of concealing genjutsu, but that would've been all the more suspicious if an enemy detected a henge; she had counted on how unmemorable she was to begin with to be successful on simple reconnaissance missions like this one.

But by telling Itachi that she was no longer the heir and being seen out so openly on a mission would only reaffirm his supposition that she was sealed, and thus, would keep her doujutsu safe.

"No longer?" Itachi's voice had shifted to bemusement, solidifying Hinata's impression of him being utterly insane. No sane missing nin just sat down for tea with a known chunin of the village he was missing from and then proceed to question her about her tragically sad life.

Though in her current position and his clear superiority in strength, she supposed the Uchiha could do whatever he wanted.

Hinata's head jerked into the customary bow more out of habit than desire. She finally glanced up at the man, and saw a crown of dark, silky black hair bowing back to her, his face rising so that she could see—

Oh no.

Itachi's mangekyou sharingan blossomed in his eyes, swirling shades of crimson and pitch, and Hinata froze, caught in the face of their black, spinning tomoes, a distant part of her realizing that this was how she was going to die—

No-she couldn't die here! She had to live, for her friends, for her village—she thought, trying to tear her eyes away, but failing. She felt her byakugan activated of its own accord in response, the elder doujutsu fighting against its rival's power-

Before Itachi suddenly looked away, breaking their locked gazes to glance back down at his tea bowl as if nothing had happened. The Hyuuga was left blinking dazedly at the spot his eyes had previously occupied, her head suddenly beginning to throb from the effort of—whatever had just happened. Had the world shifted? Had he trapped her?

Hinata felt the energy in the room around her, but couldn't detect a single difference. And that scared her all the more.

"Tell me why you're no longer the heiress." Itachi said softly before bringing the tea cup back up to his mouth, quickly consuming the intensely bitter matcha.

Hinata's mouth parted as she openly stared at him. Had she been in a genjutsu the moment she walked into this room?

"W-why would I tell you?" She asked him. The tea bowl left Itachi's lips and she once again found her face to face with a man whose appearance was only barely recollected by those who knew him in Konoha.

His face was far different then she remembered, she thought, making sure she kept her gaze averted from his eyes. Though the Itachi of her memories was shadowy at best, a tall, looming figure with cold eyes and a brooding countenance.

She hadn't realized that he had a fleck of pale, scarred skin next to his nose, or that his features were so painfully perfect it hurt to look at him for too long. His brows were gently furrowed in thought, his lips settled in a faint grimace of distaste. His eyes were as assuredly dark and red as she had been told, simmering with power as they flicked back up to meet her gaze before she immediately looked away, framed by his devastatingly sharp features. He looked as if someone had drawn him out with charcoal and only smudged out some of the harsh edges.

He was like…some sort of celestial being that had survived in a cold, heartless sky, living on even when all his brethren had flickered out and died. Perhaps this was why she couldn't meet his gaze—it was like staring at a star for too long, making her eyes blurry from the light.

This Itachi also didn't have the strained, tense appearance of a caged animal she remembered. If anything, the much older man seemed tired, she realized. More tired than she had ever seen someone in a long time, as if that self righteous flame was eating away at his insides. Crimson flashed at her, and Hinata quickly averted her gaze back down onto the pale, primly folded hands in her lap.

"Because it changes nothing, save for my perception of you." He said, his voice completely toneless.

Hinata bit her lower lip, tried to fight down a blush at the mortifying memory he was drudging up, though she knew it would be best to keep him talking, since she still didn't have a plan to escape.

"I-I wasn't...the right choice for the clan." Her words sounded hollow, even to her own ears. They were a part of the memorized script of her disinheritance speech given to the Hokage and again to all of the Hyuuga.

Hinata stopped, not wanting to finishing recalling the memory, and abruptly reached forward to grab his bowl to serve tea to him for the third time. But the Uchiha had picked it up again, his eyes deliberately running over each side. Somehow, Hinata felt that he was inspecting her with those deadly eyes; not the cup he moved around in his hands.

"Your stutter has grown more pronounced over the course of our conversation," He observed. "That usually indicates fear or a weakness of character. Are you afraid of me?" He asked, though the way he phrased it made it sound like an academic inquiry. He seemed unconcerned that his presence made Hinata's heart pound, knowing that her life was hanging in the balance of her answer.

The Hyuuga silently watched Itachi's hands turn the cup twice and face the side he found the most beautiful towards her, causing her to blink her lavender eyes in astonishment. Almost all of people she had served tea to during the festival had chosen the front of the cup as the most attractive. The design on it was of a waxing moon, half full, and the front depicted its full half in gold leaf, the delicate handiwork revealing shades of darkness and light that made for a fascinating relief on the surface of the bowl.

But the side Itachi placed before her was the back—the dark side of the moon. The glaze had been burned over and over again until the black shade was darker than any other part of the bowl, as fathomless as an empty night sky.

Hinata reached out for the cup to examine it herself, trying to grasp why this strange man sitting so close to her would choose that side as the loveliest. Unable to understand, she placed it back down before her with a small nod as she began the process to clean her tools and end the ceremony.

"Clearly they find you too weak." The missing nin continued, clearly impatient with her lack of response. "The Hyuuga have always been rather close minded to any way than what they perceive to be right." Itachi deadpanned. She could feel his eyes following her every movement, unnerving her.

Hinata tried to ignore him, steadfastly cleaning the scoop and the bowl with a fastidiousness and speed she hadn't used before, her enjoyment of the ceremony having completely evaporated. She didn't understand why the Uchiha was so bent on talking to her, but she knew that the sooner she finished the ceremony, the sooner he would be gone.

Or she would be dead—but either way, there was no point in dragging out the inevitable, she thought, still wondering in the back of her mind if she could get at least one good hit on him before he murdered her. Her father would kill himself from shame if he ever discovered that Hinata had simply rolled over and died. Even if she was assassinated by the one of the most infamous missing nin on the planet.

She wondered about Naruto. Would he be hurt when he heard? The thought made her blink sadly, feeling guilty for a pain she hadn't even caused him yet.

But her determination re-solidified. She would do something to try and capture Itachi, or die trying. She wouldn't give up! Like Naruto, that was her ninja—

"Thank you for the tea."

Itachi's voice startled Hinata as she heard him bowing his head again, silk shuffling. She blinked and realized that all of the instruments were in their proper place in front of her. She had been so consumed with her thoughts that she had simply flown through the motions—she was done.

She bowed back, her carefully styled bangs falling in front of her face she moved her body to face the dangerous member of the Akatsuki, turning so that she was sitting directly across from him.

Itachi regarded her pensively, as if she was a complex equation he couldn't solve. She could feel his sharingan eyes crawling over her again like a dark creature, and she repressed a shudder. There was something malevolent within the doujutsu's power, even if the user's actions had been, thus far, harmless.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked quietly, genuinely curious about his assessment of her life, which, although scarily accurate, was even more unnerving considering their situation. But why was just toying with her before he killed her? How did it benefit him?

"Because," Itachi's voice was barely loud enough for her to hear, threatening in its emotionless promise. Hinata swallowed, her mouth bone dry, afraid to do little more then breathe. She sensed the energy in the room shifting, her body going on high alert as she felt his chakra coalescing behind her.

"Even though your clan and most who meet you would perceive you as weak, you not only met my sharingan head on, fighting against a genjutsu that has crippled shinobi far more powerful than you, but you also remained calm and collected and completed the ceremony, despite your clear fear of me." He said, and she felt the shadow clone that had formed behind her move in a quiet rustle of silk. Hinata blinked as she tried to process his words. She unknowingly fought off a genjutsu made by the mangekyou sharingan?

More than that—she had survived? The kunoichi didn't dare move, afraid of what he was doing, even as the hands beside her feet inched ever closer to the poisoned senbon.

"Not only that, but you performed it almost flawlessly."

Perhaps even most concerning was that Uchiha Itachi, savage murderer of his entire clan and one of the most wanted men in the five shinobi nations, was coming dangerously close to complimenting her?

The world truly was turning on its head.

"Even now, you show no tell tale signs of fear. If anything, in the last few moments your intention to try and capture me seemed to only reassert itself." He continued, and Hinata glanced up at his face again. His expression was unreadable.

"It would seem that you are quite the contradiction." He finished, the elegant fingers drumming on his left knee being the only indicator that he was actually intrigued.

Hinata felt her mouth go dry, and she swallowed, trying to regain some of her saliva.

"Damnit!"

The loud curse and subsequent crash from the room beyond distracted him, and Itachi's gaze flickered past her, clearly distracted by the commotion. She used that moment to throw herself bodily against the shoji door behind her, crashing into it as the senbon flew from her hands.

He had vanished almost immediately, and the two steel needles embedded themselves uselessly into the wooden beam behind where he had been sitting. She was only concerned about escaping however, and was scrambling to find the innocents still left in the building.

"Eri, Ayumi, Miyuki-sensei, we have to—"

Hinata turned to find that the tea room had completely vanished, and she was instead stranded in the middle of the large forest. She could've been anywhere in the Fire Country or along the edge of Tea's border. Hinata's clothes had changed from the tea kimono she had been wearing to the uniform she had adopted as chunin. Her byakugan activated itself of its own accord, responding to the sudden rush of adrenaline in her system.

Genjutsu. She tried to think back on the training Kurenai had put her through, her sensei's bright cerise eyes, a pale mimicry of the sharingan, reminding her again that it wasn't real.

"It's not real, it's not real." Hinata repeated to herself, trying to forget that she was a chunin fighting an S-class criminal who was a member of the most dangerous organization in the world.

She stretched her sight for a kilometer in every direction, swerving back and forth so that the Uchiha wouldn't have easy access to the one blind spot directly in the back of her skull. Her hands trembled a little in her gentle fist stance, but she held firm, waiting for the missing nin to reappear. The one good thing about this illusion was that she at least had her weapons again, giving her a far better chance to defend herself.

"Why do you persist in fighting a battle you have already lost?" Itachi's voice filtered from nowhere, but everywhere, lingering in the recessed shadows of the trees. Hinata whirled around, waiting for him to move first.

He did not disappoint her.

The Uchiha appeared suddenly, flickering into reality. She responded on reflex, her byakugan giving her the crucial advantage to see exactly where Itachi's fist was coming from and deflecting it with a hiss of steel meeting steel.

In a second, he had flashed to her other side, and Hinata flipped backwards to avoid his strike, though the tip of his kunai sliced through her forearm despite her rapid reaction time.

I have to go on the offensive! She thought to herself, ignoring the stinging of her flesh. She pressed forward as soon as her feet were steady again, sliding into her gentle fist stance and moving to try and hit just one of Itachi's chakra points as he took a step towards her again. If she could touch just one tenketsu, she might be able to break the illusion.

He blocked her effortlessly, sending her flying with an impossibly fast kick to her chest before vanishing again. Hinata's back slammed against the tree with a sickening crunch, and she gasped as the air left her lungs on impact.

He was easily the fastest shinobi she had ever seen, his rapid movements making her feel as though she was fighting through sludge. She stumbled back up to her feet, inhaling as quickly and deeply as she dared to return that lifesaving oxygen to her body, though her limbs still seemed to be moving days behind him.

She turned as she felt the missing nin's chakra reappear, her fingers desperately pressing forward to find his arm, his shoulder—

"You forget that I control this illusion." Itachi's voice was like crushed velvet against the shell of her ear, his breath cool as large, graceful hands on hers and snapping her wrists to her sides. She realized she had been fighting a clone as the figure in front of her melted back into the ground like a shadow.

Hinata continued to struggle frantically to free herself, even as she realized exactly what the Uchiha meant. He had only given her the illusion of control to make it all the more worse when he took it from her again.

She felt him deftly lock her arms, pushing her to her knees in a mockery of the seiza she had been sitting in during the tea ceremony. She fought to try and roll away, but he possessed an inhuman strength that was even more powerful in his illusion. Even though it was simply an imprint on her brain, she was only as strong here as she subconsciously knew her physical body to be. Someone exerting inhuman strength was one of the key ways to recognize you were in a powerful genjutsu, she remembered from her lessons.

Not that it helped her much here.

Another Itachi appeared before her, pinwheeling crimson eyes evaluating her, his face expressionless.

"Please, just leave the rest of them alone. They don't know anything about you." Hinata asked, her voice was so quiet that she barely heard it over the sound of her heaving breaths.

"You seem to harbor feelings for the civilians who have, at best, been only moderately kind to you." He said, just as quietly, though his voice had a far more deadly undertone to it.

"They're innocents. No one in Miyazaki deserves death."

"Anyone can deserve death in our world, as long as someone is willing to pay for it." His reply was equally clipped. "How long have you been an active shinobi?"

"Th-three years." Hinata said. She could feel the sharingan watching her with disdain.

"And you've yet to kill a child? Or murder an innocent just because they happened to be serving the wrong master? Eliminate someone who was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

Hinata shook her head, just once.

"No. Konoha tries to limit our casualties—"

"Clearly few things have changed." He said, his voice deepening despite the ambiguity of his words. Hinata could almost taste his anger in the air now, like ozone and fire, its tangible presence skittering over her body and making her tremble. It was probably all the more evident because she was trapped in his genjutsu, his emotions filtering through into the reality he had created. Kurenai had said that could happen sometimes too.

The Hyuuga felt his kunai pressing delicately onto her fluttering pulse. The steel was icy on her skin. She could feel it.

"It's not real." The words sounded desperate, even to her own ears, as her eyes snapped up to finally meet his again—it's not like his sharingan could do any more to her than it already was.

Crimson and pitch pinwheeled before her, making her feel suddenly dizzy, before he vanished again. Suddenly, the presence behind her felt more…solid as his chakra coagulated to form his physical body, real flesh replacing the shadow hands that held her.

She blinked, and they were once more back in the tea room, though now there were three more clones holding Eri, Ayumi, and even Miyuki-sensei pulled back by their hair, identical blades on their throats.

"Hikari—Hikari oh God he's got you too—" Eri's voice was cut off with a strangled sound as the steel pressed more deeply into her flesh, opening a sliver of vermillion that spilled down her neck.

Ayumi was sobbing, her face mottled in red and white splotches, blubbering incoherently. Miyuki-sensei was also clearly distressed, her arm hanging uselessly by her side. Hinata wondered if she had actually tried to fight the missing nin. The thought made her feel like laughing, a little hysterically.

"Hikari tell him, tell him we'll give him whatever what he wants!" The old woman sputtered as she continued to struggle against the clone who held her. Wrinkled brown eyes turned to the Itachi behind Hinata, recognizing it as the one controlling the clones. "Anything—money, daimyos, power, I know who can give them to you, I can help—"

The flesh of Miyuki's throat split like an overripe peach, blood seeping like juice onto her beautiful kimono as she sank to the floor.

She was dead before her head hit the tatami.

Eri screamed. Ayumi continued to sob brokenly, her limbs twisted at unnatural angles in the clone's hands.

"It's not real, it's not real." Hinata repeated the words like a mantra, even as the crescent moon of her fingernails bit into her palms. She felt that too, the pain she was inflicting on herself. But that was impossible, you weren't supposed to be able to inflict pain upon yourself during a genjutsu, it had to be through the wielder's will alone—

"You may choose, Hyuuga Hinata. Your life or theirs."

"This isn't real!" Her voice was desperate, even as the shadow clone that had been holding Miyuki melted into the floor. Both Eri and Ayumi were broken and hysterical now, though they managed to stay quiet as the Itachi clones hovered like angels of death over their helpless bodies.

"Choose, and I'll release you."

The moment of clarity hit her. He wanted her to prove to him that he was right. He wanted to be vindicated in his idea that in the end, all shinobi truly cared about were themselves. That Konoha shinobi would do anything to save themselves, that they didn't care about innocents.

Hinata refused to give him what he wanted.

"Kill me then." She said softly, and she felt the kunai on her throat still. And for a long and terrible moment, Hinata thought that she might've surprised him.

"The self-sacrificing mentality of Konoha shinobi continues to astonish me." He said flatly, and Hinata felt leaden as she watched his kunai flip from her neck to sink into her chest. She felt something akin to distant surprise at his deftness, the blade slid neatly through her ribs and embedded itself into her heart with a quiet pain she barely felt, even as it began to spread from her chest as she fell from his arms.

She didn't scream, but felt the muscle pulse once, weakly around the steel before halting completely.

Eri and Ayumi's screams were the last thing she heard before succumbing to darkness.

"It's…not…real…" Hinata said softly to herself, floating in that strange, suspended blackness, wondering if she really had died before she was suddenly jerked back into reality.

And it was reality this time. She could feel the coolness of the autumn breeze again, the feeling of the tatami pressing into her hands and knees—sensations she had completely forgotten, but made Itachi's illusion seem terribly stale.

He was still sitting across from her. Clearly he had trapped her right after they had bowed towards each other moments ago.

"Will you make the same decision if the stakes are higher, Hyuuga?" He asked curiously as the crash sounded again from behind her. Except this time it was followed by a terrified shriek, and she heard Miyuki's indignant shouts before vanishing to chilling silence.

Itachi's crimson eyes watched Hinata's hands carefully, seemingly studying her fingers as she wrung them in her lap.

"They're innocent." She repeated, feeling like a broken record. The Uchiha shrugged.

"Nevertheless, choose." Hinata grit her teeth.

"Kill me."

"You're quite eager for someone who recently had a kunai shoved through her heart."

"I've always been prepared to die for the sake of my mission. They aren't shinobi."

"Let's see if they have similar attitudes of self-sacrifice."

Hinata's eyes widened. "No, please don't—"

They were dragged in, the same order as last time, their silence giving way to screaming and sobbing and horrified faces as they saw Hinata was trapped too, and that the crimson eyed man behind her was staring at all of them with open disdain. Hinata used the distraction of their entry to palm the poisoned senbon from her tabi to her hand this time, using every ounce of her skill to hide it in the swirling of her kimono as she turned back towards the Uchiha.

"Please, l-leave them out of t-this." Her trembling voice giving away her trepidation and fear. Itachi's fathomless, ruby eyes met hers for another long, terrible moment, before he gestured for her to look back at the women she had lived with for the past month; those she had shared meals with, laughed with, worked with.

"Hikari, what are you doing? RUN!" Eri screamed, clawing at the pale hand that roughly held her up by her hair. Ayumi's tears mingled with her snot as she wept over her expensive kimono, and Miyuki was grasping at straws, just like she had in the illusion Itachi had created before.

"Please, I know what you want, I can give it to you—"

"Your life or Hikari's?" The Uchiha asked dully, seemingly bored with the entire enterprise. Hinata didn't struggle against his grip this time, knowing how useless it was to try, the fight seeping out of her. Itachi's fingers gently grazed against her collarbone, in what might've been a caress in another life, with another man. Here, it just felt like another twisted show of dominance, reminding her again of how much control he had. Somewhere in the back of Hinata's mind, she wondered why he hadn't wrenched her hair back, or squeezed her throat tight enough to choke off her air supply, like he was doing to Eri and Ayumi right now.

"I won't ask again. Which life do you choose?" He repeated, and Miyuki sputtered. "The girl's innocent!"

The clone behind the old sensei moved to slit her throat, and her earsplitting screech made Hinata wince. "No, her, please, I have so much more left to do, I have a family, and she has nothing!"

Hinata remained silent, already knowing she would be condemned. Her sensei at least had the decency to avoid meeting the Hyuuga's pale eyes, her protests quieting as the clone's kunai dropping from her neck.

"Hikari's life or yours?" The Uchiha asked Ayumi, releasing her throat enough for the girl to gasp for air.

"Kill Hikari!" The pretty acolyte spat the moment she found her voice again, some of the spittle running down her chin. Hinata wasn't surprised, though the vehemence of the girl's words sent a pang of hurt through her numb chest. She felt Itachi's focus fixate on the last of the three women before them.

"Your life or—"

"Oh Hikari I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—" was all Eri could say as she shook her head, emerald hair sliding free from her bun again to shadow her eyes as she desperately tried to look away.

Hinata felt Itachi lean close to her ear again to once more pose his deadly question.

"So: Hinata Hyuuga. Will you still die for these innocents, though they would not afford you the same courtesy?"

Hinata didn't even hesitate.

"Yes." She said, her voice finally firm, even as she felt the kunai press deeper into the flesh of her throat.

"Kill me."

The entire room was still for one long, terrible moment, and Itachi brought the tip of his kunai to the delicate skin between her jaw and ear. Hinata closed her eyes.

And heard him simultaneously slit the throats of the three women in front of her her.

Hinata's eyes snapped open immediately at the sound, and she wrenched forward as if to save them. Itachi let her go, knowing as well as she did that she was already far too late.

A flock of ravens screamed around her as she fell to the floor, their feathers felt filthy and claws teared her hair from the delicate updo she had been wearing for the majority of the day, pulling the strands of her dark hair to frame her face in a wild, haphazard fashion.

Eri, Ayumi, and Miyuki's swiftly mixing blood was hot and sticky against her hands, even as she fruitlessly tried to reach out for their necks, her hands glowing a faint green, the Hyuuga knew it was hopeless. Hinata watched, her eyes dulling, as their hearts pumped out the last of their life in a scattered trio of beats before halting completely, the blood soaking the ivory silk of her kimono and staining it redder than Itachi's eyes.

She sat there in silence, trying to think of all the things she could've done differently, how she could've saved them-

"Miyuki is the one running the ring to assassinate wealthy merchants and appropriate their goods for the village." Itachi's voice cut through the thick fog that had suddenly enveloped her. "Ayumi is the one that seduces and kills them, Miyuki mixes the poison and seizes their assets. Eri helps dispose of the bodies. They were using you for a cover as much as you were using them."

Hinata felt her heart skip a beat.

"That's impossible." She said, shaking her head in disbelief.

Itachi shrugged. "Their last victim had been providing my organization with essential supplies that are difficult to get on this side of the world. I was asked to eliminate them."

Hinata shook her head frantically, her fingernails scraping across the tatami—

The dry, bloodless tatami beneath her hands.

She blinked up and saw that Eri, Ayumi, and Miyuki's bodies remained splayed across the floor, unmoving, but their slit throats and blood had vanished.

She whirled around, and saw Itachi standing a few scant centimeters away from her.

"They died painlessly. Though their responses were the same as what I showed to you when I offered them your life for theirs." He said softly, and Hinata blinked up at him, still abjectly horrified. "If I didn't kill them now, you would've had to in a few weeks time."

Itachi's voice was still toneless despite its richness and the darkness that lingered in his words. His crimson eyes remained fixated on her with that same stare—the one she knew from a lifetime of being on the receiving end of it, a gaze that lingered somewhere between pity and disgust.

"You will remain weak unless you come to terms with the truth of the shinobi world." He said. Hinata's fingers clenched into fists, and she felt the senbon she had palmed earlier. She wasn't sure how she managed to hold onto it throughout the genjutsus he had put her through, but she felt the steel now as a plan suddenly formed in her mind.

"Why did you do it?"

Hinata asked, giving voice to the one question that every shinobi wondered about the enigma standing before her, but only a handful, if any, ever dared to ask.

"Why did you kill them?"

The Uchiha's face froze in faint disbelief before he schooled it back to his customary, emotionless expression. The silence lingered for one long, terrible moment before he spoke again.

"I did it for the good of Konoha."

He said with a finality that resounded in the Hyuuga's heart, even as her fists clenched again, true anger beginning to burn from within Hinata's usually demure façade. With a soft inclination of his head, Itachi finally turned to leave, bowing his head to make it under the low archway of the door.

Hinata took that moment to fling the two poisoned senbon at him—Itachi caught the first one and deftly used it to knock away the second as it followed, whirling back around, completely unscathed—

To find Hinata's gentle fist slamming into his the chest with a burst of chakra, fueled by a sort of rage she didn't wholly understand. It was a hatred, a loathing for someone who took what Konoha, the village she loved, stood for and warped it to such a degree of evil, and it gave her a power and a speed she didn't even know she had-

Itachi disintegrated into a flock of ravens. Hinata felt their dirty feathers brushing against her skin like a mocking caress as they surrounded her for one fleeting moment of darkness before vanishing out the door and every window. Byakugan eyes followed them, watching their ascent through the ceiling of the tea house as their dark wings fluttered into the distant sky.

"I am not afraid of you." Hinata said, finally answering the question he had posed earlier, and realizing with a jolt that it was true. Itachi had never seemed human to her, just a monster from a village ghost story—until he was suddenly sitting in front of her, interrogating her about her morals, her beliefs, her very way of life. He was human, and she knew that she could, and would fight him again—though his reason for murdering his clan had deeply unsettled her.

For the good of Konoha…what could that possibly mean?

As the ravens finally disappeared from sight, Hinata felt her knees finally give out, and she slid to the ground, unbelievably alive and relatively unscarred. She clenched her arms close to her sides, feeling the shudders of post traumatic stress rock through her. She recognized the symptoms immediately from her study at the hospital, and was still in enough control of her own faculties to know that the tremors came from relief more than anything else.

But as tears began to well up behind her lavender eyes, Hinata couldn't help but feel as though something important had been stolen from her, gone within the darkness of the missing nin's cloak.

Faintly, she thought she could hear a deep chuckle, Itachi's voice coalescing from the shadows of the room before his presence vanished completely, leaving her with nothing but her thoughts and three bodies strewn across the floor like refuse.

"Until we meet again, Hyuuga Hinata."

Fin.

Author's Notes: This is part one of the Entropy series, a trilogy about Hinata and Itachi I hope to finish. The idea behind it was to take someone as inherently good as Hinata and show her...the dark side of the world. And who better to do that than Itachi?

This series is not a romance, as I see it in my head, but more of an exploration of morality and character. I always like to think of "what if" situations. What if Itachi and Hinata knew each other from being clan heirs at the same time? (It does seem plausible, considering ancient Japanese clan politics). What if they happened to meet again by happenstance? What if Itachi found himself wanting to destroy someone's naivety? Or would he be fascinated by Hinata by some other reason? These are all themes I would like to take a deeper look at, just for fun, if nothing else.

If you're down for the ride, please comment and tell me your thoughts! What would you like to see happen? What do you think should happen? How will Hinata deal with the aftermath? Will Itachi seek her out again?

You'll have to wait for the next installment to find out! (Preview enclosed as the next chapter)

Cheers!

-Prosely