literature

Subjective Humanity, Ch. 20

Deviation Actions

SpammishRice's avatar
By
Published:
1.1K Views

Literature Text

One of the first things Captain Nara designed in his prototype ship, to precisely no one's surprise, was comfortable, home-y living quarters for himself and his crew.  They may be living and working in the cold deadness of space, but they didn't have to be constantly reminded of it.

Yet as soft as his deer suede couch was, or how plush the dense-pile carpeting was, Shino noticed his longtime friend was sitting like he was on a spiked bench.

The Aburame himself was situated cozily in a rather deep armchair, elbows on the rests and fingers clasped in front of his face, quietly observing his captain over the rims of his dark glasses.  Not that Shikamaru would've noticed his audience, since he was staring raptly at his and Shino's communicators sitting silently next to each other on the coffee table.

He could understand his old friend's anxiety and frustration—-because of their rank and deep involvement in the bio-android project, they were deemed invaluable, nearly as much as Temari and Hinata themselves.  Which meant, unfortunately, they were unceremoniously banned from leaving the Keima to assist in retrieving the girls.  Shino fully understood that should the worst happen to the two most valuable citizen soldiers to ever exist, the higher-ups would at least settle for having Shikamaru and himself alive and well to essentially create H-1178 and T-3177 all over again.

It was a thought that sickened Shino.  And he suspected it affected Shikamaru the same way, though perhaps slightly differently, considering observations through the years between the captain and one particular Lady.

But, the Jounin Lieutenant reminded himself, this was assuming the worst.  One could expect the worst, but there was always room to hope for the best.

"I'm confident that they will be perfectly fine," Shino reassured in his typical stark tone.

"Yeah, yeah....I'm sure she is, too," Shikamaru half-heartedly and half-attentively answered.

"....Hm."  A dark brow arched above dark lenses.

****

Temari blustered her way to the back of the restaurant, not entirely sober but still well aware enough to know she might have just completely screwed up the most important personal connection she had in her life.

Shit, Hinata's body's alcohol tolerance is non-existent, she bemoaned to herself.  She didn't even finish the lightweight wine cooler she had ordered, and the relatively straight line from the threshold she stood at to the door of the ladies' room was quickly turning into a crooked adventure in hallway sciences.  This probably wasn't the best state to be in to attempt some damage control, but she wanted to nip at the bud whatever Hinata's reaction could be.  Then again, what could she possibly say?  "Hey, sorry, I kind of made out with the guy you'd been crushing on for your entire life while in your body" wasn't one of those things one would find in those sentimental greeting cards.

Temari pulled midnight blue hair from her face and took a deep breath as she stood in front of the ladies' room door.  When she felt ready, she stepped up to the threshold, expecting it to automatically slide open as all public restroom doors should.  She jostled the handle and attempted to manually open the door.  It was deadbolted.

Crap, is she that mad at me?

"Hinata?" She knocked on the door lightly.  "Hinata, are you blocking the door?"

Light rustling on the other side was Temari's only response.  This was....not the reaction Temari had expected.  Then again, it wasn't like either of them had experienced this sort of intense emotional output before.

"Please, Hina-chan, open the door?  I just....I need to explain what happened."

More rustling, maybe a small whimper.

"You know what?  This is okay," Temari pressed her head to the door.  "You don't need to say anything.  Just please listen, and don't hate me too much."

The Suna woman heard what could've been shuddering breaths and took that as a sign to continue.  "I am so, so sorry, Hinata.  None of this was supposed to go as far as it did."  She squeezed her eyes shut at the responsive thump from the door.  

"I never, ever forgot how you felt about Naruto.  Not once, I swear.  But I think somewhere down the line, I forgot how I was supposed to feel about him."

Was it her imagination, or was the rustling sound starting to build up?  

"I just kept telling myself, 'I'm doing this for Hina-chan, this is all just an act, once this whole thing is over, things will be back to normal.'  But things just...happened, I don't know how, and I found I wasn't acting anymore."  Temari knew she was rambling, and it sounded really dumb out loud but she really couldn't stop it now.  "We were stuck together for so long, and things just progressed and, god, I don't know.  I just...I don't know how to process any of this...."

She belatedly started wiping at her eyes when she realized she was crying.  Did tears normally just pour out like this?

Temari swallowed and felt the salty sting move down her throat.  "Is it....like this for you?  Not with Naruto....but you know who I mean.  Just looking at him, and not feeling anything at first for years and years, and suddenly your insides just clench when you're around him.  And it physically pains you to your core when you think, 'This person, this stupid, idiotic person doesn't know who I am, he doesn't see me, and I really wish that he did.' "

It was dreadfully silent on the other side of that bathroom door.  Perhaps Temari hit a nerve.

"Don't worry, I don't think anyone else has noticed the way you've started looking at him.  Maybe it's because it's me, but I've seen your face.  Er, my face?"  Temari corrected herself.  "You...you never really looked at Naruto that way.  And you're certainly not looking at Kankurou that way, and he's already taken you out on a date," she laughed a little, pushing long dark hair behind her ears and away from wet cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Hina-chan, please forgive me."  Temari pressed her hand to the door, as if hoping to feel some warmth from her oldest and dearest friend from the other side.

Instead of warmth, she received a deafening smack against the door, and clatter of metal of hitting tile floor, and rustling, and scuffling, and --

Doing what she was taught at a very early age not to do despite having the ability to do so, Temari focused on amplifying every electrical current jumping through her synapses, every miniscule magnetic pulse between cells, and shot an electromagnetic pulse out of her hand positioned at the electronic deadbolt of the door, blowing it out in an explosive short-circuit.  She shouldered the sliding door open as hard as she could and found a wild-eyed redhead clinging onto Hinata's back like a gigantic tarantula, one arm muffling Hinata's mouth, the other in a stranglehold around her neck.  Hinata, taking advantage of Temari's stronger body, was doing her damnedest trying to thrash the psycho off of her by swinging into the walls, the sinks, the stall doors, anything.  

The blonde woman quickly took in the situation and what she had to work with: a smaller body she has never used in a combat situation, built more for speed, finesse, and agile defense.  It was clear Hinata was doing her best working with Temari's body, which was trained for aggressive melee and sheer strength.  Damn it all, whatever works will work, she thought.  

With a mighty grunt, Temari gunned it into a running tackle sideways into the other two women, smashing them all into a row of electric hand dryers against the wall.  There was a squilching pop, and the strange woman yelped in pain, her now dislocated arm losing its grip around Hinata's neck.  Hinata crumpled to the floor, barely conscious and gasping for air.

She didn't know what the hell was going on, but Temari was positive this crazy chick was going to suffer the ass-beating of a lifetime now that she joined the party.  She stood above the the girl lying on the floor, with eyes the same color as her scarlet hair, and with slow deliberate grace, placed a heavily-booted foot right on the dislocated arm, and did a grinding twist.  She had to give this stranger credit – she let out only a grunting moan through gritted teeth.

"Who are you."  Temari gave no tone of inquiry, only of command.

"No one you know," the other woman replied, rather snarkily.

Temari leaned forward on the foot on the injured arm.  "Enlighten me."

The redhead didn't answer, but blinked rapidly as the pain in her shoulder intensified.

Off to the side, Hinata was regaining her faculties, holding herself up at a sink as she steadied her breathing.  "L-look at her face, Temari," she rasped between breaths.  "Really look."

Temari stared down at the woman who was defiantly staring right back up at her.  The red hair was wild and covering at least half her face, but upon closer inspection, if the eyes were a different color, if the hair was a different texture and not quite so bright...

The woman grinned, "Find something familiar?"  

More than familiar, she looked just like... The answer hit Temari, and the redhead took the opportunity to use Temari's foot as an anchor and with a slick fump, popped her shoulder back into its socket.  The split second of imbalance was enough for the woman to sweep Temari at the knees and knock her on her back, banging her head harshly against tile.  She made a diving grab for the brain wave scanner that Temari only now noticed was on  the floor, but couldn't make a grab for it herself what with the starry haze from hitting her head and a bit of that wine cooler earlier.  

Luckily, Hinata was quick to throw herself at their attacker, and they both crashed into the waste bin, grasping at collars, hair, throats, anything they could to keep the other away from the scanner.  After a few seconds, the wild woman gained the upper hand, taking advantage of Hinata's unfamiliarity with the mechanics and potential of her body,  She heaved Hinata over the sink and smashed her headfirst into the mirror.  Hinata could feel warmth oozing from her crown but maintained her grip on the other woman, even wrapping a leg around her to keep her in place as they continued to wrestle.

The scarlet woman only used this move of desperation to shove her forearm into Hinata's throat, the poor girl feeling the all-too-familiar oxygen deprivation again way too soon.  Temari, still woozy, made a grab for Hinata's leg still wrapped around the redhead, and thanked whatever above her that Hinata wore these particular boots.  She yanked at the bootstrap, unsnapping the safety strap and unsheathing a ceramic knife that she promptly lined up neatly with the stranger's jugular, and grabbed the girl across the face to keep her chin up.

The three of them stayed in this locked position, Hinata half-strangled on the sink, eyes fluttering and head bleeding, Temari unsteady on her feet but hands firm with a knife on the enemy caught between the two of them.  And a second after feeling what she thought could be a smile against her hand, Temari felt the stranger bite hard into her palm, blistered and burned from the earlier electromagnetic pulse.  Temari screamed and fell away, and with her departure their attacker gained torque and punched Hinata in the kneecap to free the leghold.

With Hinata fallen and completely passed out on the floor, the vicious woman turned to Temari huddling over her injured hand.

"Your lord must miss the original if he made a second version," Temari sneered.

In answer, the redhead kneed her square in the chest, knocking the breath out of her.  She finished it off with a right hook at the noblewoman's face that rendered her unconscious.  A half minute was spared to scan the downed woman's brain waves.

"Whatever you may think you know of this face, attach only one name to it: Karin."

She pulled out her thick, black-rimmed glasses, swept her hood over her head, and quietly slipped out of the bathroom and out the back door through the kitchens as a rosy-cheeked military fresh meat in new recruit uniform yelled at restaurant staff that she was absolutely not underage and was just trying to check on some friends she saw go into the bathroom.

*
The vacuum of silence in the captain's quarters was broken with the comparatively deafening ringing of his communicator, which Shikamaru couldn't seem to answer fast enough with fumbling fingers.

"Did you find them?" he blurted out before even registering who was on the communicator screen.

"Captain, it's not good," Tenten replied gravely.  Captain Nara could see white tile and walls behind her, and heard a door crashing open followed immediately by two frantic and familiar male voices cursing up a storm and asking what in the fuck just happened.  The unmistakable voice of Rock Lee held no vigor nor enthusiasm as he commanded the other two men to calm down.

Shino positioned himself within Tenten's view on the communicator screen and further inquired, "What is their status?"

"Injured.  Unconscious.  They were attacked."  

Very near the worst had happened, Shikamaru thought.  "Get them out of there as inconspicuously and quickly as possible.  We can't risk their security outside of Konoha space."

Tenten looked perplexed, "Do you have any recommendations?  We're in a restaurant bathroom in the middle of the station's main thoroughfare."

"The viaducts," Shino answered.  "I'll upload a map to your communicator.  One leads from the alley behind the kitchen directly to the docking bay."

"Then we'll meet you in the Keima med bay shortly.  Tenten out."

*

The sunny blond Lieutenant Uzumaki trailed the somber group through the viaducts, utterly confused about the events that had just unfolded.  Confused, angry, hurt, all those standard emotions that come with discovering one was being lied to, and being the ONLY one who didn't know.  Up ahead, Kankurou carried Hinata—or was it Temari?  Oh hell, she LOOKED like Temari—head bandaged and body covered by Kankurou's jacket, while Lee carried the Hinata-looking girl, whose breaths were alarmingly rattly and loud.

Seeing both of the women like this only fueled his frustration: did Granny Tsunade think that not informing him fully of the situation would make him more capable of protecting them?  The whole time he thought he was just meant to keep the beautiful Lady Hyuuga company, and perhaps ward off a couple of weirdos here and there.  He had no idea they were completely switched of their bodies, and therefore vulnerable to terrorist attack.  Why would they hide that from him?  He felt disgusted, with himself for not making himself more trustworthy, for not paying attention to those details that were now all too clear, and with his superiors, for letting this happen.  But most of all, he felt the bitter sting of betrayal that the woman he had fallen for, the Lady Hinata of the noble clan of Hyuuga, was not his Hinata at all.

He watched as Lee's strides made the unconscious woman's dark blue hair swing in tandem.  How much of what he saw was Hinata?  How much of it was Temari?  And if that fire he saw behind the flash of white eyes was meant to be found in deep teal, would it be the same?
It's hard writing fights. But hey, three-way chick fight, hey-o!

Despite how long I take writing this damn thing, and how absolutely shitty I am lately with replies, I really really really do appreciate that there are still some folks out there who kinda dig this little bit of sci-fi romance nonsense. And it truly warms my heart that there are people who have been sticking with this thing for over three years. It seriously makes me tear up a bit. You guys are awesome beyond words, honestly. :nod:
Comments7
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
SoulofSacrafice's avatar
I hope you eventually get the time to write and post more. I love this story and I miss your artwork too. I hope all is well on the home-front. :)