Summoner Nin

Page 2

Part One: Childhood

Chapter Two

She had been crying for weeks, white eyes growing pink from just the salt content alone. With her small, baby fat fingers, she clumsily pried up a rock from the garden and sighed with relief, holding back even more tears. When her mother was dying, she told her to keep the scroll hidden, and she did the best she could, telling no one that it was hidden in the garden her mother loved so much.

For days, she was nervous that someone would find it and steal it. She would pace around her room for endless hours like a nervous fawn waiting for its mother to return. It was awful, all those hours twisting her fingers, nibbling her lip and wiping anxious sweat for her forehead. Always afraid that maybe, out of all the members of the clan, her father would notice something strange about her.

With byakugan or not, Hiashi was simply too busy reconstructing his cold exterior after his wife died, and much too distracted with the new baby. The council had even started to pressure him into resigning from ANBU and to become the Head of the Clan indefinitely.

In fact, they were holding council at that exact moment, leaving the hallways of the Main House empty of servants and people. Taking the chance to finally check on the scroll, little five-year-old Hinata had snuck out to the garden and eased her nerves. Because right there, underneath one of the rocks that made up the pathway, was the chest, and inside was the scroll.

She smiled to herself, proud that she was able to keep up with the promise so far. Wiping tears with the sleeve of her lavender kimono, she sniffed, thinking that her mother was happy up there... in heaven.

"There she is!" came an urgent whisper.

Startled, she dropped the rock back into place and spun around to see ninjas from the Hidden Village of the Clouds. They were looking down at her, eyes staring intensely, as if to drill her image in their minds, scaring her. Small and weak, she took a step back, afraid.

"Hiashi-sama is within the room," her uncle Hizashi interrupted the two fearful shinobi. "If you would please."

"And who is this little girl?" a Cloud-nin asked.

"She is Hiashi-sama's daughter and heir to the Hyuga Clan," her uncle answered, his eyes showing none of his suspicion. "Hinata Hyuga. Now, if you please, Hiashi-sama is waiting for you."

Giving her one last look that shook her, the Cloud-nin left for the meeting room, leaving her to her strong uncle. Her uncle looked at her with the same hard eyes that were like her father's, and even though he spoke very little to her, she always felt some sort of repressed anger around him. With the same face of her father's, she was always afraid of him.

"You should go to your room, Hinata-sama," her uncle told her in the same cold voice of his.

With a squeak, she dashed hurriedly to her room and hid herself among the covers.

A month later, in the middle of the night, terror struck the Main House of the Hyuga Clan. Little Hinata, with her short black hair shinning in the dim moonlight, entered her room in relief after just checking the scroll again. The whole house was quiet, and she learned quickly how to control the force in which she stepped on the floor. It took a lot of precision, especially when her sister would always wake at the slightest of sounds.

And her father never did like noise.

Shutting the door behind her, she walked, in the dark, to her bed and snuggled in. With the thought of her mother and a smile on her lips, she fell asleep. But not long before she started to dream, a pair of hands went over her mouth, jostling her awake. Eyes of fear, she struggled against the hands, her screaming muffled.