Konoha was relatively peaceful compared to three years prior. All major matters were kept restrained and any factional disputes took a back seat. It was a time period of international peace talks between Hi no Kuni's Konohagakure and the rest of the world.
Six years earlier, the Kyuubi incident had put thoughts of conquest in the minds of the other Hidden villages. Konoha was vulnerable and ripe for picking.
Thousands of undercover troops were sent to scout out the various counties surrounding Konoha. Many people had been silenced without even their neighbours knowing.
The Nine Tail's Jinchuuriki.
They had to find it.
It was a chaotic three years after with war sentiments brewing. A Tailed beast was an extreme variable that tipped the scales in their favour just by its mere presence.
Owning one gave the whole country more weight and say in negotiations.
Hi no Kuni was large, fertile and populous. Add a weapon capable of decimating entire armies and they become practically untouchable. And, it's not always they had more understanding Kages or Feudal Lords. There was hundreds of years of old spilt blood still rusting into their border-stones.
Some senior strategists found it very fortunate to have hidden away the Kyuubi no Jinchuuriki.
Kumogakure. Sunagakure. Iwagakure and all other villages circled around looking, searching. If Naruto were within Konoha, he would have left traces. But the only trace left was news of his trial. Clips of the broadcast were sent back to the other villages. A life sentence? Sentenced to where?
Had the Sandaime, Sarutobi Hiruzen not consolidated the village and took major control, declaring martial law and strictly re-ranking, reshuffling, the dreaded 4th Great Shinobi war would already have been on the horizon beginning from Konoha's civil war itself. He was a madman with a method. His advisors Koharu and Homura along with Danzo did their utmost. Danzo especially recognised the signs of stirring war and mobilised ROOT to deal with the prying units. They were hidden much deeper than ANBU making them extremely difficult to trace. ANBU, Jonin, Chunin were stretched thin over Hi No Kuni and needed the more dirty jobs done.
It all had to be done without any suspicions towards Konoha's hand.
The most threat Hiruzen felt, was from Yuugakure. It was with great effort, mobilising elite forces, distraction tactics, certain threatening warnings that he concealed everything at Hell's Valley.
Just like that, within three years of the attack, things began settling down.
In two more years, once Naruto was confirmed to be stable, with minimal risk of blowing up the village, he would be brought back secretly and kept safely within Konoha. Perhaps he would lobby for him to be put into the foster care of his eldest son, who was recently engaged.
But first, Hi No Kuni and Konohagakure No Sato had to repair some relations that had frosted into sharp hanging icicles.
One by one, Hiruzen and the council had been dealing with each nation, sending ambassadors, gifts, political talks, trade talks, war compensation, everything happened at once. The council contemplated even putting on a parade to speed things up.
The Konoha Council was busy up till their ears. Security department, Uchiha Police Force, Village Maintainance and Planning department, Newspaper and Magazine department, nearly everyone had plenty to do.
Today the Kumogakure envoy had arrived and settled into the guest inn.
It was a snowy scene outside with fresh seasonal fruits presented to the diplomats in wicker baskets.
Kumogakure's Head Ninja bit into a pastry as he watched the bustling scene outside. He wasn't supposed to be in the team. The other diplomats discussed contracts and other matters behind him. He had another mission to fulfil.
.........
Konohagakure had three reasons for why it could become the very first Hidden village established among all.
The first, fertile lands and population.
They could self subsist in agriculture and produce enough to supply a quarter of Kumogakure just by surplus grain. Ochards, lakes, timber forests, mild temperatures and favourable climate made it capable of supplying another quarter of Kumogakure.
Second, location.
It was centrally connected to more than eight other Lands as well as sea and was the perfect hub for trade.
Third, and most importantly, the many shinobi lineages.
Especially those with kekkei genkai. They were unexplainable mutations that were hereditary. Konoha owned the most ancient of lineages, if not the very first instance of kekkei genkais that ever appeared in this world. They zealously preserved them even at the cost of death. A kekkei genkai user was worth at least five ordinary shinobi.
Elemental release kekkei genkai manipulated the very elements within and outside the body.
Dōjutsu were complete cheats letting a user perceive hidden information.
Like the Sharingan. The Byakugan.
Kumogakure need that.
They had the first type. What they lacked was Dōjutsu.
The Head Ninja knew the where the perfect target would be.
A mother and daughter giggled together below his window, their indigo hair decorated with enamel flowers. Seven white eyed guards surrounded them.
Ah, there she was.
Heiress to the Hūga clan, a five year old Hūga Hinata.
..........
(Trigger warning: Torture, Rape) (skip to next bold text)
Ryūki tapped the cage. Small bony arms were presented to him in haste.
He signed to his mouth. The creature opened its maws quietly.
He took a pair of small tongs off the trolley and grabbed the white tongue out yanking it as far as it could be stretched. It couldn't squeeze much further than the bars.
Snip. Snip.
A thick pair of surgical scissors cut the tip off.
Snip. Snip. Clink. Snip.
The rest of the tongue was taken out too and plopped into a jar of brine.
It bled but made no sound. The gushing blood was quietly swallowed.
Next were the eyes.
Then its penis and testes.
Each snipped off and plopped into more brine.
The creature was a shaking mess, yet not making a sound.
It was splayed out on its back. The pain made its body seize up, contracting tight enough to fracture bone.
Bile rose and spilt out. Its mind was dipped into a foggy abyss as it awaited the next bit of pain.
The swollen, disproportionate abdomen was sliced open, pressure causing its guts to burst out.
Snip. Snip. Crack. Snip.
Kidneys were pulled out. Liver, pancreas. Intestines were stuffed back in.
"Hey, I didn't give you permission to sleep."
It signed awakeness with one free trembling hand, its mind abruptly fished back into the moment.
When he was done, a separate slab of raw meat with some powder sprinkled on it was placed in the cage.
"Good job, today. You may eat after waking."
He left. All that was left behind was a squirming mass of bones and blood, regenerating, restitching.
Empty sockets dripped with blood and pus.
(End of trigger warning)
Ryūki was satisfied with the new samples. His workdesk was filled with a special sort of data.
The Uzumaki Clan.
From the Hidden Whirlpool Village, Uzushiogakure no Sato.
These were related to his ward's birth mother.
The Namikaze barely existed so he stopped bothering with that. Uzumaki was interesting enough.
His research finally got a direction. It was an arduous four years of prying out information from graves and skeletons. His small Yuugakure team was insufficient for his tasks. So he had begun recruiting. There were many mercenaries among the poorer nations that would do anything for any price.
He had tried getting back I to contact with Yuugakure but realised the presence of Konoha's activities. He had no choice but to break into Yuugakure's archives on his own. Genjutsu was very convenient then.
In summary, from his findings and four year search, the Uzumaki clansmen were an anomaly.
Even the way they were wiped out was an anomaly.
He needed more.
More workers.
More allies.
More information.
And more live wombs.
..............
Crash!
Her pale eyes buried close into the bosom of her mother, Saki. There were strange men standing guard over them, whispering furiously.
Her mother soothed her while ignoring the pain from her broken ankle.
How did this happen?
One day she was home with her parents and baby sister eating a breakfast of simple bean porridge.
Today she was lying in damp muck while her mother, covered in scars shielded her from the foreign shinobi. They were far from home, she knew.
"Our Hyūga clan and Konoha Shinobi will not let you go," Saki threatened with a forced even voice, "They'll pursue until the end of Earth, there's no way you can hide forever from the Hyūga."
Negotiations, threats, begging, fighting, secret trail marking, suicide attempts and secret calls for help, all were for naught. Kumogakure Shinobi thwarted every attempt.
Hinata and Saki knew the fate that would befall them if they were to reach their destination. Not only would they be exploited, thousands of years of Hyūga honour and secrets would be destroyed. Not escaping soon either with their lives or through death would disgrace everything about their existence.
The thick snow was freezing and Hinata worried about her mother's broken ankle. The kumogakure shinobi didn't let her do any first aid. They'd rather risk slowing down than give a Hyūga an opportunity to escape.
Amegakure (Village hidden in the Rain), thought Saki, looking at the sun. Her secret and overt attempts at escape rewarded her with a broken arm and a ripped off piece of scalp. Her baby daughter was tied up, blindfolded and drugged heavily. Both had been separated to the opposite ends of the group.
They had been heading west the past few days, avoiding all pursuit from ANBU and Jonins. A fully planned kidnapping and transport of the precious Hyūga princess, Hinata Hyūga. They even had a few external reinforcements from mercenaries.
It wasn't amegakure as she thought.
There was a special route hidden near the border adjoining the Village Hidden in the Grass.
Their kidnappers, a whole platoon of twenty shinobi and fifteen mercenaries all went underground after paying a hefty fee in a convoluted series of passwords, body checks and bribes.
Saki was a retired Chunin. She had more than enough knowledge in her experiences as shinobi and Hyūga's core networker that she knew this place was new.
The underground line was extensive and suffocating and had they not had a steady supply of packed oxygen, they would have died within the minute, breathing in noxious fumes emitted from the earth. She saw many recognised crooks passing by that her eyes widened in fear.
A criminal's silk route.
Here, they traded humans and forbidden soul-damning trinkets and techniques.
She realised, she could be merchandise too. Perhaps, if she didn't want to be separated from her daughter, she'd better be quiet now.
It took a day and a half by her warped estimation to exit the underground route. She didn't know where she was. There was a brief dispute between the mercs and shinobi so they decided resolving it above ground was safer for them.
For some reason, during the dispute, she was allowed to hold her unconcious daughter again. Maybe this was a chance?
She covered her broken bones in chakra, like a makeshift splint. And began her assault.
......
This attempt cost her half a palm.
And it cost them twelve shinobi.
The mercenaries were all dead due to infighting. That's when she took her chances.
Escape.
Or die.
They were far from their original location. She was surrounded by eight remaining shinobi.
It was a miracle borne from desperation. A single Chunin took down a team with four Jonins!
Hinata had woken up with her chakra pulse and fought so fiercely alongside her-taking down two men and assisting her with four more, Saki was so, so, proud of her Hinata, yet her tears choked her sobs.
Her precious baby, so young and strong, and they would have to die here far away in a foreign land.
She missed Hiashi, her newborn baby Hanabi. She felt sorry for letting them down. She couldn't protect her Hinata anymore. So, at least, let them both preserve the Byakugan instead.
Hinata didn't really understand death. Yet the stolen kunai in her small hands was already cutting deep into her own neck. Her small gentle eyes looked at her with fear and pain and a quiet reassuring look that said, Mama, I'm not scared anymore, I trust you.
Oh, Hinata, gentle and kind, even in the face of death.
.......
Death wasn't as scary as Saki thought it would be, no. The hell she saw in front of her was beyond her imagination.
She was alive.
Her daughter was by her side too, whimpering softly.
So were the six kumogakure shinobi. Two were missing, she realised, the main leaders on the platoon.
Sin.
The people beyond the bars were engaging in pure sin.
Children and women of various ages were chained up along walls awaiting their fate in the plaza of depraved inhumans.
Some kumogakure shinobi were already emptying the contents of their stomach onto the red stained floors.
The scent of sulphur and metallic blood stung their noses.
It wasn't two days, by Saki's internal clock. Two days was all it took to break six accomplished kumogakure Jonins and Chunins into a mess of cannibalising animals. All of them were strewn about naked in the underground plaza with the rest of the inhuman humans partaking in the hellscape rituals.
There was just one change. A man stood above them all, watching them from a suspended beam. Saki would come to know his name soon.
The accursed Ryūki.
A devil she had to make a deal with.
His offer was a lie, she knew. But lie or not, she was broken enough now to do anything, anything, for her Hinata. Perhaps she had lost her soul already, the moment she entered this hell.
Now the only bargaining chips she had was her body and her daughter, Hinata.
The air in the underground plaza was filled with a strange red mist. Within the mist was a heavy, oppressive chakra blended in thickly enough to be felt and almost seen.
Saki felt the chakra was the very thing stopping her and her daughter's honour suicide attempts. Every wound they inflicted on themselves would stitch together within minutes. They couldn't move chakra withing their meridians, effectively preventing them from using their Byakugan to search beyond the underground plaza walls.
The dreaded deal got them out of there. She couldn't even begin to explain the horror in the corridors beyond the plaza.
They were kept in a damp cell with two more residents. She had to help Ryūki with his information. She knew he was interested in her daughter. But what confused her was that he wasn't interested just because of the Byakugan. No clue helped her understand either. But she did understand how she ended up here.
This person was the owner of the underground route. The dispute between the mercenaries and kumogakure shinobi was too close to the route and would have attracted unnecessary attention to the existence of the illegal route.
So he and his men helped her whittle down the platoon discretely to just eight shinobi and captured them all, letting two go to report back to Kumogakure.
Why she and her daughter were spared from the fate of the rest of the men was beyond her.
The underground corridor walls were covered in pipes lit dimly. Her experience made her realise it wasn't just water flowing through them. It was an impossible, never achieved before, pure and condensed liquid chakra.
Her final chance was here.
A single ignition and she knew, was enough to wipe out everything that existed within a day's walking distance.
I'll drag this place to the real hell.
.
.
.
Hinata was once again separated from her mother. Her gnaut face belied her weakness and exhausted five year old body. Ryūki wasn't gentle while dragging her towards a small hidden cell adjacent to her original one.
This cell had smaller and more numerous pipes leading to a small cage. In fact, the cage itself were pipes.
"Wake up, we're doing something new today."
His command brought out a wild scramble from behind the cage.
He dragged her in front of the captive.
"You've seen how women are used here. We've taught you everything. Now you will do to this one what you've seen."
Hinata's pale eyes met with inhuman crimson irises with vertical slit pupils. She shuddered in terror.
.
.
It didn't understand this new command the warden gave it. It didn't understand what he wanted it to do.
Halfway through the new event Ryūki cursed, "Wait, is she too young for this or-" storming out to the other cell and left this new creature with it.
It was made of colours it had never seen before. Pale skin and dark blue hair. White ghostly eyes. Almost similar to the distorted creatures that inhabited its dreams.
It didn't know what new hurt this new thing would bring it. It cowered away still into the sharp pipe ends.
It didn't know, the strange thing it feared, was its first heavenly pardon.
.......
.
.
Saki felt things were going too smoothly.
Somehow she managed to secure her daughter. She knew she was safe. The past two weeks, she was a God-sent for Ryūki. A month ago, she had helped him decipher multiple scrolls worth of information and develop seven different plans and two jutsus.
It was too smooth. Too beyond her actual experience or abilities to accomplish everything she did. Inspiration flowed and her body adapted to the environment. Her wounds healed and her restraints reduced enough to unseal sealed scrolls. The reduced restraints let her use her Byakugan past Ryūki's sight. She could see her daughter and her cellmate through the walls that separated them.
She learnt the names of every person, sponsor, ally, and staff involved is the making of this Hell on Earth. It came almost too easily to her. Despite the extreme secrecy of it all.
She got a basic understanding of the nearby layout too.
Is this...the Valley of Hell?
They were in the North!
She realised belatedly, this was divine aid. And the divine wanted her to erase this place off the map.
Not that it couldn't do it itself of course. But because it let it take this natural way.
There was only one way she could describe this entire 'experiment'.
A demonic black ritual.
And she was right at its core.
.
.
.
Author's note:
Yea I know the kidnapping happens when she's three in canon but this is my fic. It's when she's five now. It's early January here. It's a heavy winter snow.
Well, there you have it, continued from chapter 'Scroll of Barren Exchange'. You can go back to reread it if you've forgotten any details.
I can't find the names of certain required characters like Hinata's mother, etc. so they're gonna get names that fans have given them in other fics/ wiki.
I'm just gonna rush through the plot now. I like writing happy things instead of this messed up shit. This is all the stuff I see in my nightmares. Maybe I've been seeing too many nightmares that they have become regular dreams now.