one_long_mission | [Open] It was a rare day off...

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[Open] It was a rare day off...

...and Hanabi didn't see them often. She considered herself, at this point, little more than a drone of the Hyuuga estate, fated to take on the much respected, prestigious role of heiress, and subsequently fated to losing much of her childhood to training, studies, and other assorted etiquette lessons and fine arts like calligraphy, weaving, ikebana and tea ceremony. All to ensure she grew to be a splendid young lady.

She certainly didn't feel splendid. She felt exhausted.

But it was a lovely day in the midst of winter, and for once, Hanabi was in the midst of Konoha, breathing in cold hair and watching mist form in front of her mouth. Hoheto, her Branch companion of the day, stood some distance behind her and followed her slowly, as if to appear as though he weren't directly watching her.

She felt self-conscious, being fourteen and still needing a keeper to tag along everywhere, but Hanabi learned quickly that this was life, and a privilege to have so many people dedicated to keeping her in the best of physical health.

Still, thinking dark thoughts wasn't going to improve the day, so Hanabi wanted to make the best of it. She walked slowly up to a shop selling yams and bought one, savoring the taste (though it wasn't as good as the ones spiced by Hyuuga hands).

It was cold, but it was a beautiful day. A day of freedom.

If you ignored the bodyguard tailing you.

Hanabi had tried an inordinate amount of times to ditch them, and failed every time; they were jounin, and she was decidedly not. Still, with every new year of training, she dreamed of escape.

Escape, the thought spread a fuzz over her brain that felt like drinking warm hot chocolate.

With the sight of the Byakugan, she eyed Hoheto's location.

She could make it.
She could.
She would.

With a small signal, a bunshin and a kawarimi no jutsu later, she was running giddily toward the forest. At the longest limits of her vision, she could see Hoheto was not following, and shortly, he'd be out of range.

"Well, it seems like you're having fun," an eerily familiar voice said...just before something hit Hanabi couldn't see hit her squarely in the gut and made the world black.

* * * * * * *

The first thing she noticed was that she was cold. Then, slowly, as sensation returned to her body, she realized her mouth was dry, like she hadn't had a drink in days, and her head and stomach hurt terribly. Shifting alone gave her gut-wrenching cramps. When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by white.

Snow.

Snow? In Konoha?

No. Not Konoha. Definitely not.

Instantly, Hanabi assumed the worst. She must've been abducted. Kidnapped to blackmail her father. The snow was probably genjutsu...it would be silly to leave precious cargo lying about to freeze to death.

She shakily lifted her hand to make the seal of the ram. "...kai..." Hanabi whispered, hoping the genjutsu could be released simply.

Too hopeful, she chided, staring up at the snow that didn't fade, and the chill that was starting to make her clothing wet.

Hanabi was sure that she was in over her head. For a day of freedom, this was the punishment.

No. Move. Get up. Find out what's going on.

Get up, Hanabi ordered her body. Get. Up.

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"So you're from a little after me, then." Funny, Tenten could have sworn Hanabi had been shorter than this, but, well, she hadn't exactly been trying to memorize every little detail about her, either.

"So who'd you run into before me? I mean, no offense, but those really don't seem like Hyuuga style." For one, they're a different color, two, they don't fit perfectly, and three, she'd been carrying a bundle of far drabber clothes with her.

Well, to Hanabi, Tenten looked the same, and 17? That was the same age, as well. As far as she was concerned, this could even be her time's Ten--no. Stop thinking ridiculous thoughts. This was a genjutsu. An elaborate ridiculous genjutsu mean to confuse Hanabi.

"Oh, before you? No one important. I was soaked to the bone in the snow and a kind person helped me. It's nothing. I heard there were other Hyuuga here. Do you know who?"

"Huh..." Tenten gave her another long look, then shrugged. It wasn't unheard of -- after the first snowfall, the locals had been suspiciously generous, distributing scarves, boots, and other winter-survival gear at will. Though...

"Where'd you hear that?" The only other Hyuugas she knew of were Neji, and she didn't think he was all that friendly around the village to have his name generally known. "Just Neji, he lives up that way." She glanced out the window to get her bearings, then turned in her seat to point eastward. "A big house out that way."

Hanabi twitched instinctively. It figured.

Just figured. Send her illusions of someone she hated, and none of her precious sister, who seeing might've at least given her a modicum of personal comfort.

"...ah. And where do you live?"

She saw that twitch and forced herself not to sigh through her nose. Hyuugas.

"The other side of town, over there. I live with, um. Two members of the Uchiha clan," she brushed over that and munched a dumpling. "There's plenty of space around here, but I know Mikoto-san has plenty of rooms available if you want somewhere to get out of the cold."

Uchiha?

Hanabi tilted her head to the side. "Aren't there only two of those left?" She didn't know who Mikoto was, but she assumed it was an innkeeper.

So many names...she'd never heard of such a specific genjutsu before, and history was something she was compelled to study.

She winced and glanced sideways for a moment. Well, the girl would be learning about it sooner or later. "Where we're from, yeah. This place is like... an in-between, of some kind. Mikoto-san... Uchiha Mikoto-san was killed, but she's here. I live with an Itachi, but he didn't... he's not a missing-nin like we'd think, he's the Hokage of his Konoha. It's... pretty complicated, and I still haven't figured out how it all works yet."

Hanabi made a face that looked halfway between a grimace and trying to stop herself from grimacing. "I see. That's very interesting. That could certainly tie into the theory that this is some Uchiha-run jutsu, couldn't it? I mean, it seems as if those are more...favorable options than the Uchiha actually met, right?"

Actually, if she thought of it that way, that also likely made this genjutsu something of an Uchiha's creation.

So it was Uchiha Itachi...or Uchiha Sasuke's doing. And considering Tenten's words, it seemed more likely to be Sasuke's doing.

This was good information.

She nodded to herself, ordering another cup of tea.

"I thought you said yourself it wasn't genjutsu?" Tenten frowned at her and took another dumpling from the plate, opening this one the same way as she looked at the other. "If it was an Uchiha genjutsu, why would they have you talking to me instead of... I don't know, someone like Hinata or your father? Or even Neji?"

"I didn't say it was a genjutsu," she returned, her eyes going half-lidded in annoyance. "I meant the space-time jutsu. It's sort of..." It'd been explained to Hanabi several times, but parts of it were Hyuuga secrets that she didn't want to reveal. "It's something like...you can manipulate time and space and come up with a multiverse of sorts. If it's as you say, the multiverse provides favorable outcomes for Uchiha, isn't it logical that it's an Uchiha jutsu? They're capable of it."

That gave her pause, and she tapped a chopstick restlessly against the tabletop. She'd never heard of something like that, but Obito had said something about creating entire dream-like worlds that felt real... could that be the same thing?

"It... could be," Tenten said finally, her free hand going to lightly brush against the rings of her necklace -- the three-ringed necklace Itachi had given her. "But that still doesn't explain the other place I was. Not here, not Konoha. A different dimension entirely. That had nothing to do with the Uchiha."

Considering this Tenten was undoubtedly genjutsu, any other worlds she might've claimed to have been to were inconsequential to Hanabi. "Well, just because one world isn't doesn't mean that this one might not be, right? We have to consider every option, if we want to return home."

"I... guess." She shrugged, restlessly twirling a chopstick between her fingers again. "The weather's pretty unpredictable here, so once the snow clears up some, I was going to head toward one of the nearby villages. The closest one's maybe a week's travel from here, but the blizzard hasn't let up for more than a day or two at a time."

Return home. That was something she hadn't thought about in... far too long. After being jerked from world to world, she'd almost started to think it was impossible to go back... after everything with Itachi and Sasuke, she wasn't sure she even wanted to.

"You seem uneasy," Hanabi commented, realizing that guessing people, even genjutsu people, was still something she could do. She let the topic drop when Tenten changed it out of politeness, and moved on. "There are other villages, here? And a blizzard...that's certainly not Konoha weather."

Tenten gave her an unamused look, but followed the topic change without further comment. Damn perceptive Hyuugas. "No, it's not," she agreed, twirling a chopstick one more time before setting it to a dumpling again. "From the people I've spoke to, we're in the Country of Time. I don't suppose you've ever heard of it? I've never seen any map with it, and there's nothing that shows the Land of Fire on any of these maps. But there're other villages; they have to import certain goods, like metals."

Hanabi thought about what Tenten said carefully, and noted the unamused look. He supposed she got a lot of it from Neji and was annoyed with it. Hanabi wouldn't push the issue. "Maybe it's similar to erm...the summoning animals."

"That's what I thought, too." She pointed the chopsticks at the younger kunoichi before taking a bite from a dumpling with another frown. "But that would mean there was one person, or several people, summoning us here. Someone like you or Neji, sure, I could understand why they'd do that. Itachi and Sasuke, of course. Someone like me? Please." Tenten snorted through her nose and shook her head.

Hanabi took another cup of tea and sipped it thoughtfully. "Maybe you're here to throw us off of the real purpose. Though in that case, I'd think that Neji-niisan would also be a lost cause...after all, they cannot take his Byakugan."

...Wow. Insulting both her and Neji within two sentences. Tenten's expression soured at the thought that she was considered a diversion and Neji, useless.

"Or maybe there's something else here at stake besides your eyes, Hyuuga-san."

"It's not as if I considered them a prime target, I merely stated that if they were bringing certain types of shinobi here, assuming there is some usage for them or something particularly special, it seems strange that they would consider my cousin as a part of that."

Hanabi realized that the genjutsu was offended, but she wasn't sure if it was something she cared about.

Still. Maybe these genjutsu would stop talking if they were angered. "I do apologize if my statement was crass. I did not mean to offend."

"Yeah, you're right, it was crass. Neji's plenty important, no matter which side of your clan he was born into." Between Obito and now Hanabi, Tenten was starting to get pretty tired of this clan nonsense. "Lee and I are here, so's Sakura. People who hardly have any affiliation with the Hyuuga or the Uchiha. You think we're all just here as diversions?"

She was starting to understand why Neji had used to refer to the head family as spoiled, selfish brats.

Hanabi didn't even bother to look offended or put out, just bland. "Sakura-san is close to Tsunade-sama, that is a logical reason to bring her here. Lee-san...well. Lee does have a peculiar ability, doesn't he? It's not necessarily about Hyuuga or Uchiha specifically...but perhaps certain types of rare abilities and knowledges. Do you know some sort of secret?"

"Why not just bring Tsunade-sama here directly, then?" Tenten flicked her wrist to gesture to the whole village and gave another self-depreciating snort. "Hardly." The secrets of the Sharingan immediately came to mind, but she'd learned that here, from someone who was already in this place.

Hanabi chuckled. "Tsunade-sama is very powerful, and very well protected. Maybe they couldn't. And maybe the secret you know isn't something you're aware of. If it's that. I'm only speculating." Hanabi took another pointed sip of tea.

"Maybe." She shook her head again, meeting the younger girl's eyes. Meeting a Hyuuga's eyes, that was something she'd always been proud of; Neji had been ample practice.

"The other thing that's weird is that there's been no hostilities here. Not even from people you'd expect it from; Akatsuki members and the like."

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