Caught in the Darkness

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: The Secrets the Past Conveys

The night seemed calm, except for the thoughts tormenting Hanako's mind. When she touched Gaara's face in Kakashi's memories, she had expected to find Gaara's memories, but instead she entered his mind. She could remember being inside Gaara's head with the Ichibi; but that wasn't what concerned her, the Bijuu spoke to her. It spoke to her as if it had known her from way back.

Hanako was surrounded by darkness after she touched Gaara. She turned around, looking for Kakashi but frowned when she couldn't find him anywhere. She was alone...or so she had thought.

"Did you lose someone?" a grave voice spoke to her from behind. Hanako looked over her shoulder and her eyes widened slightly when she saw a giant raccoon made entirely of sand. It had one long tail that hovered over his shoulder and bright yellow eyes stared back at her with black diamond shaped pupils.

"What are you?" Hanako narrowed her eyes as she turned to face the thing completely.

"What am I, you ask?" The thing spoke with noticeable mockery. "You humans really have no respect towards us, do you?" The thing moved towards her and growled. "Even less you, huh, Samara?"

"Samara?" Hanako was taken aback. "Did you just call me 'Samara'?

"That's your name, isn't it?" It retreated back. "I, Shukaku, could never forget that cute innocent little face of yours. Deadly, lethal, little Samara Otsutsuki...oh, sorry I had forgotten," Shukaku chuckled. "You changed your family name, didn't you? You started a clan of your own with Indra. What was your clan name, again?" Shukaku asked.

Hanako didn't know what the Bijuu was babbling about, but at the same time what he was saying felt oddly familiar. "Uchiha?"

"Uchiha! That was it!" It laughed again. "You weren't very creative with names. I think the name started off as Uchiwa, but then —throughout the years— the newest generations started to call it Uchiha and it stayed like that." Shukaku laughed again.

"I am not Samara," Hanako blurted out. Shukaku's laughter died out and he looked at the girl in front of him. "You might be confusing me with someone else, my name is Hanako. Hanako Uchiha."

"Hanako?" The Bijuu seemed to think about the name but then shrugged it off. "No, it doesn't sound right. You are Samara, I'm sure of it. You look just like her. Same face, same long brown hair, same merciless eyes..."

The Shukaku's last description made Hanako's heart stop. Same merciless eyes. "Merciless?" she asked with her eyes narrowed. "Says who? A raccoon trapped in a child's body?"

"Careful there, Sammy. You're in my realm now, your eyes don't work on me here." The creature smirked. Hanako gritted her teeth, he would continue to call her Samara, even if that wasn't her name. But...who was Samara?

Hanako had told Hayabusa to drop her in the Uchiha Compound. Once there, Hanako hurried towards the clan library and broke into the restricted section. It was the second time she had been there, but this time she wasn't looking for a transcript she could easily make. She was looking for the clan's history, for its origin, for the very first Uchiha. Samara...Indra...why did those names sounded familiar to her?

"Why?" Hanako was on the verge of tears. She had thrown shelves down, inspected every single book, but none of them talked from the time before Madara. And the information she was looking for went probably almost a thousand years back, nine times older than Madara and Amane.

Hanako had left a mess in the library before she collapsed on the ground. She found nothing regarding Samara or Indra, either those books were missing, or no one bothered to write them.