5.18

    I stared at the wooden ceiling of Yamato’s mobile home base. I was on my bed, tucked in comfy warm blankets. That had been a nice touch from the stoic jounin. My evaluation of him had to change a bit. I once thought he had no dad energy, but now I knew the truth: he just had hidden dad energy.

    Time had been hard to keep up with. I wasn’t about to lie and say I didn’t remember anything. There was no timely loss of sanity this time for me. No passing out and dealing with dreams, no merciful oblivion of unconsciousness. I was all too aware that some part of my mind couldn’t deal with what we found in the lab. That same part refused to let me forget.

    My throat was a stinging, agonising mess, that not even my enhanced regeneration had been able to keep up with. Not when I screamed for hours, until I couldn’t anymore. After that, I just hadn’t the will to move. Yamato carried me out of the Hideout, tucked me in bed. I didn’t resist, even if the screaming hadn’t stopped.

    I did, however, hear Yamato’s explanation of the situation to Sai and Hayase.

    He was kind enough to fudge the truth. I wasn’t having a mental breakdown, no, in his version of events I had fallen prey to an insidious trap when trying to enter the labs. For that reason, that wing the hideout was off-limits for now. Too dangerous to explore alone. My guess was that Yamato wanted to keep the others away from learning about the clones.

    It was a good plan. That was a disaster waiting to happen.

    Was that Orochimaru’s plans here? An army of cloned Hyuga? Somehow, that didn’t seem to fit my idea of the murder-hobo. He was evil, not burdened by morals or sentimentality, he didn’t mind killing, nor did he mind bringing back the dead. He didn’t mind using people, then discarding them. But an army of clones? Maybe I was jumping the gun here.

    How long had it been since I was placed on this bed? I considered getting up, but just wasn’t feeling up to it. My eyes were dry, and stung every time I tried to blink. My stomach roiled. It felt like I was about to spill it at any time.

    There was a cup and wooden jug of water by the bed, a bowl of some soup I couldn’t identify. I really wanted a sip of water, but the cup was too far away. The effort to get up and take it didn’t seem worth the hassle of getting out of the bed.

    While I contemplated what I should do, the door to my bedroom opened. Yamato walked in, holding a bowl. He walked to my bed, removed the old bowl, placed the new one there. Steam billowed out from the container, the smell of veggies and cooked meat reached me.

    My stomach protested. I looked away.

    How was I going to solve this problem, then?

    I ignored all the world shattering, mind-boggling and trauma inducing revelations and questions. Put away my anger, and resignation, and sadness at the loss of life. I –very reluctantly– shelved my burning need to be a good shinobi and obey my orders. In the end, what did I want right now?

    Unburdened by all those thoughts, the answer was simple, and sad.

    I just wanted someone to hold me.

    With difficulty, I climbed to a sitting position. While I was there, I stretched toward the small table by the bed, took the cup and sipped the water. It hurt going down, but that was fine. I placed the cup down again, settled once more on the bed.

    It was ironic that my solution in the end involved clones, when this whole mess also started with clones. My hands flashed, my chakra churned. In front of me, there was another me. Round face, black eyes, black circle under her eyes, face pale and wan.

    This time, I didn’t change her name. No cute, endearing nicknames today. Today, we faced the truth. “Hinata-chan,” I whispered.

    My other self nodded. Tears welled in her eyes.

    I scuttled closer, pulled her on a tight hug. She placed her arms around me, trembled at the contact, or maybe I shuddered, I wasn’t sure anymore. We didn’t talk, there was no need to. We went from sitting down to laying on the bed, still clinging to each other. I wasn’t sure how to convince myself everything was alright, even if I knew it wasn’t. At some point, I started to shower her face with small kisses. Her forehead, eyelids, cheeks, nose, chin. It wasn’t the passion-filled kind. I just couldn’t think of any other way of saying what I needed to say.

    There was this old adage, actions speak louder than words. I just wanted me to understand that I still loved myself.

    At some point, not sure when, we fell asleep. I had a nice dream.