Summoner Nin

Page 1: Summoner Nin

Part One: Childhood

Chapter One

They told her to stay in her room and out of everybody's way, so little five-year-old Hinata Hyuga did. Her cute, rotund face looked worried as she heard people scramble up and down the hallways. She blinked her white eyes in fear when she heard her mother screaming in another room. Dressed in a small white kimono and light brown sandals, she hopped down from her bed and hesitantly scuttled to the door.

Her short bluish black hair swayed with motion and her index finger went to her mouth uncertainly. Her small childish hands went to slide the door open, only a fraction, and saw servants with tubs of hot water and handfuls of clean towels rush to her parents' room.

Another scream startled her to fall on her bum, and her eyes darted to and fro to look out for the invisible danger that had befallen her mother. For awhile, she was a shaking mass of fear, but after ten minutes, what seemed like hours to children, she stopped and stood up, her face scrunched up in worry.

Softly, she laid an ear against the door to listen to the people moving about, and then there was another scream that sent her heart in a fury of concern. She had to see her mother. She had to comfort her mother. So once she no longer heard any movement, she cautiously slid out of her room and crept up to her parents' room.

By then, a baby's wailing had replaced her mother's screaming. She paused at the side of the hallway in wonder. Was that her new sister? Determined to find out, she continued to creep and quickly leapt into a closet when a servant came out with a moving bundle. Her sister, of course, and she was tempted to see being a curious child, but then lots of other servants came out of her parents' room, filling the hallway.

Scared, she pushed herself further into the closet, watching them all leave as a solemn crowd. She frowned and wondered why they weren't happy at her sister's birth. Putting her index finger back into her mouth, she looked one last time to see if the coast was clear before coming out timidly and running into her parents' room.

The smell of blood was in the air, a warm sweetness that scared her further. The room was lit with worn candles that were almost down to its last breaths, and it was so dark that when she approached the figure lying on the bed, she almost ran back into the safe confines of her own room, away from all the sad faces and screaming and crying.

"H-Hinata..." her mother's voice called weakly from the bed.

She immediately perked . Her mother was calling her and she quickly replied by walking up to the lying woman and smiled at her.

"Mama," she said in quiet happiness. "Th-They told m-me not to c-come, but I wanted to s-see mama. Am I tr-trouble?"

Her mother, a beautiful woman of pale skin and ebony silk hair in the morning, looked worn and dead that night. She smiled at her pretty daughter and placed a reassuring, and weak, hand on the mop of her head.

"No," she said, voice straining for last breaths. "N-No."

Hinata smiled more confidently at that.

"H-Hinata," her mother continued. "Listen."

She nodded, all attention.

"M-Mama is going to l-leave soon," her mother said, wheezing slightly.

"To where?" Hinata wondered, worried.

"To h-heaven," her mother said. "B-But before I g-go, you ha-have to d-do something for me... okay, my s-sunshine?"

She nodded her head vigorously in child innocence.