SweetStealer: Oh god, another fic.

Hinata: REST! NOW!

Sweets: I can't! School's getting tougher and I need to study, update and whatnot.

Hinata: Don't make me throw away your Sasori plushie.

Sweets: NOOOOOOO! SASORI!!!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I wish I did, just because Hinata would get screen time and Sasuke would jus

Notes: I just discovered the true joys of the SasukeHinata fandom and I figured I need to love them more. Ha Ha. This was originally part of a fic I put up then put down, just because. AND I PROMISE I'LL UPDATE SUMMER CHAOS! Oh jeez, people won't leave me alone...-sigh-

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.Edge.

He had always been a hate-driven person. He had always sought after knowledge, whether it was legal or not. All he wanted was the knowledge on how to kill the one person who had turned his life into the literal living hell. He wanted to learn how to slaughter that person...make them beg for mercy, make him get on his knees like a dog and beg.

Sasuke Uchiha loathed his older brother. His life revolved around that hatred. The rage, the passion to kill...this was the reason he even existed. This was the reason his brother had even spared him. Hate. Anger. Sasuke wanted to have his revenge. He wanted someone to pay dearly for their crimes.

Their sins.

Yet, wasn't it as sin to hate so much?

Yes, it was. It was a deadly sin. A sin so terrible, so damning...

Literally, spiritually...he wasn't in touch with his soul. The boy couldn't have cared less about his soul. He didn't care if he went to Hell. As long as he had his revenge, he could take on anything else.

Even if it meant going through Hell. Again.

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Hinata watched with curious eyes. Naruto's teammate was, indeed, a sight well worth looking at. She analyzed and tried to understand how he worked. He was handsome, strong and silent. It seemed to be a good combination, if you were into that type of thing.

But she knew Sasuke wasn't. She had met him once and only once before. His still intimidated her. His very presence scared her out of her wits. There was nothing stable about him.

All he knows is hate.

Then again, all she knew was hate. That and pressure. Her problems, in a way, were almost like his. There was pressure on him to be the best. It was as if he needed to be as strong...as fast...as cunning...

But there was no way. Not at this rate.

Hinata watched as Sasuke grew weaker everyday. Weaker, not in the sense of physical strength, but in spiritual, mental sense. He began to lose to a memory that was going to destroy him slowly from the inside out.

He's giving up.

Hinata couldn't understand why Sasuke couldn't see how much he already had. Did he have to kill Itachi? Granted, the man deserved whatever painful or torturous death that awaited him, but is it really worth training and nearly killing yourself just to take away the life or another?

He was cruel. He was ruthless.

But it's not our decision to make. Is it?

Then again, for some people, was it worth it to send them six feet closer to Hell?

The idea of killing his brother to avenge his clan was noble and all, but Hinata watched and tried hard to remember what Itachi was like when he was younger. They were so much alike. Both had hate. For Itachi, the chains of his Clan. For Sasuke, the brother who massacred it.

Did Sasuke have to turn into his brother? Did he have to become the very person he was trying to kill? Ruthless? A murderer? Was he to become the very thing he hated?

Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to pain. Pain leads to suffering. Suffering leads to death.

Would Sasuke really become Itachi?

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Konoha was in its prime of spring. Unfortunately, that meant howling winds, warm sheets of crashing rain, and unpredictable thunderstorms. The ground was always wet, and gray ominous clouds tumbled and rolled overhead in warning. It was a sign.

Sasuke wearily looked up at the silver streaked sky. Already the lightning was beginning to hiss its threats as thunder roared after it. Hesitantly, he stepped out from under the shelter of the big beech tree he was hiding under. He never really liked thunderstorms. Too loud.

His house was on the other side of the village. Damn his decision to keep the Uchiha complex. Even though he could easily get there by hopping rooftops, he was too worn out and drained from the much needed chakra at the moment. Training had become more strenuous, Naruto, that good for absoFUCKINGlutely nothing blonde, was becoming stronger. Some things would never be fair.

Sasuke hissed as he felt himself stumble. He would be damned if he ever even thought about weakness or giving up. There was no way he could lose to the scum that had nearly killed him all those years ago.

So he foolishly took off into the cold, unforgiving rain with three things on his pained mind.

Damn life.

Damn Itachi.

Damn pain.

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Hinata scrambled for the safety of the tree branches. She breathed in heavily as the dark sky rumbled its warning and another sharp blot of lightning shot across the sky, making her squeak in fright.

She frantically looked around, realizing she was getting soaked. Her paper grocery bags were drenched and sopping with cold rain water, like her clothes. She had unwisely worn a cream colored sundress that morning. It had been sunny last time she checked.

Shivering, Hinata clutched her blue sweater and wrapped it closed to her body. She closed her eyes, figuring it would just be best if he waited for it to stop. After all, it was still late afternoon, even if it looked like it was night.

Suddenly, a branch snapped above her and she felt dead weight colliding on her unprepared body as she fell to the wet concrete. The wind was taken out of her so fast that she didn't have any time to scream.

She groggily looked up and came face to face with dangerously cold, crimson eyes. Her own pearly orbs were wide with shock and fear. Water dripped down the similar pale skin of the two bodies caught in the rain.

"Get out of my way, Hyuuga." Sasuke hissed, fiercely, noticing her ivory eyes.

Sasuke bit down the urge to a 'dog' to the end of a sentence and watched as Hinata cringed at his tone, and looked down, her eyes meeting the gray of the hard, wet concrete.

"I-I can't." she mumbled, incoherently.

Sasuke looked down and realized she couldn't move unless he did. He dragged himself up and deactivated her Sharingan. He had no more chakra left in his body.

"T-thank you." she whispered, her eyes roaming everywhere but his face.

Sasuke scrutinized the girl in front of him. Remembrance of her face began to creep back into his mind. She had been shy as a child, a quiet thing of the Hyuuga clan, unmarked, uncaged. Yet...

"Stop stuttering." he ordered. "Look at me."

The girl tentatively raised her eyes. They widened when she saw a long gash going through his shirt. Blood was trickling out like a tiny stream, though he rain washed it away.

"Y-you're hurt!" she cried, outstretching her pale hands.

Sasuke stepped back and glared. No way would she touch him. There was no way in Hell that he would let her make him owe her. She was just another low-life who practically lived being weak and shy. Hence the stuttering. It galled him.

Hinata drew her hands back to her chest and tangled them together so as not to start poking them together. Old habits die hard, but she was trying.

"Stop stuttering. And it's just a scrat-" he began, but stopped when he noticed that she began to tear off a piece of the hem of her dress.

"P-please, l-let me-" she tried to begin.

"STOP WITH THE GODDAM STUTTERING!" he shouted, backing away from her. Hinata cowered, her hands falling to her sides.

Sasuke felt his breathing become erratic. Hinata trembled, on the verge of tears. The boy felt nothing. His heart was so hardened by his childhood that emotion rarely snuck in.

"I just wanted to..." she faded off, averting her eyes.

"Just get out of my way." Sasuke growled, shoving her to the side rather roughly.

"But you're hurt!" she cried, protesting.

"No I'm not. I'm too good to be hurt." Sasuke denied, leaning against a stop sign that was present outside the shelter of the green leaves of the trees.

"But you're bleeding." she pointed to his shirt.

"So?" his turned to obsidian eyes towards her and she bit her lip.

"I was only trying to help." she retorted, bending down to pick up her fallen bags.

Sasuke cocked an eyebrow.

Was there an edge in her voice?

The boy looked at her again, more closely now. Her muscles were tense, her face held lines of annoyance. The veins of the Byakugan were slowly straining at the corners of her eyes. Hinata was refusing the urge to just strangle the bastard here and now.

Sasuke smirked. He was drawn to hatred more then determination, will-power, and happiness put together. There was something about the spark in her eye that attracted him. She looked angry.

Anger, to him, was power.

But it lasted for only a second. She crumbled into the worthless person she always had been. Sasuke frowned.

"Come here." he beckoned.

She stared. He was standing in the rain, leaning against the stop sign, and beckoning for her to come to him when he had just told her to get out of his way. Hinata sighed. This was unusual indeed.

The girl left her bags and stepped out into the cold rain hesitantly. Who knew what he would do to her?

Sasuke went over to her and whispered,

"You're angry with me."

Hinata winced, and murmured incoherently,

"No, I'm not."

Sasuke smirked.

"Liar." he taunted.

Hinata raised her eyes. If anything, she hated being called names. Her temper rarely flared, but this was going a bit far. He fell on her, insulted her, and then mocked her. She hated it.

She hated it.

"You're angry with me." he repeated, shaking raindrops out of his dark locks, and advanced on her.

She backed up against the short stone wall that was behind her, making her feel cornered and defenseless. Sasuke's shirt was grabbing her attention like anything else and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Stop it." she whispered.

Pinning her to the wall, Sasuke gave a hard laugh. Hinata held her gaze for a second then broke away as the boy before her began to speak.

"Weakling." he muttered and began to walk away.

Hinata collapsed to the ground, exhausted by her little encounter. She watched blue retreating back, and then looked at the cracked sidewalk. His blood was spattered here and there and she watched it run down into the street as the rain fell at its same steady pace.

Sasuke felt her eyes on his back and smirked. She was the same as everyone else. Afraid, yet admiring his skill. Whatever. She didn't matter much to him. She was another nobody. Like his teammates, like his so called 'friends', like his teachers.

Everyone was a nobody...except for Itachi.

Thunk.

There was a sudden throbbing pain at the back of his head, and the clink of metal hitting the sidewalk. He put his dripping hand to the back of his head and looked down. There was a small metal can of tomatoes at his feet, looking back at him innocently. He turned around, his eyes glaring.

Hinata stood there, breathing hard, her hair damp, her eyes ablaze. He suddenly smirked. He was wrong. She could get angry.

Hinata turned to storm away from him. He called out to her.

"Hyuuga!"

She turned, her teeth biting her lip. He grinned and threw the can back at her and watched as she fumbled to catch it.

"It's a sin to be angry."

She blinked, then grinned in a very un-Hinata like way before whispering,

"Hypocrite."

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