Summoner Nin

Page 5: Anko Mitarashi

Part One: Childhood

Chapter Five

Within a week, Shikaku found Hinata in his study having a hard time reading an overly large medical book with overly large words in which a child could never understand. He leaned against the door frame and watched her as she turned to the equally large, if not larger, dictionary flipped open beside her to find the definition of a particular hard word in which it used even larger words to describe.

She bit her bottom lip while trying to make some sense out of the words, and he sighed. Ever since Fugaku's death, she had been burying herself into his medical books, arriving early in the morning and leaving late at night. It was a wonder her father hadn't knocked the Hokage over his head for keeping his heiress for so long.

He knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to be stronger. From what the Hokage had told him, she blamed herself for the late Uchiha Head's death. But in truth, there was nothing she could have done. She could have stayed with Fugaku and got killed. The former Uchiha heir, and now an S Class Missing Nin, would have showed no mercy to the innocent eyes of the Hyuga.

Seeing enough when she started to get teary eyed out of frustration and low self-esteem, he went forward and grabbed the book out of her hands. She stubbornly glared at him with trembling lips, threatening to cry... again.

"I told you," he said, slothful. "I'll read it to you."

She sniffed before settling in her chair more fully to listen.

Sighing, he tried to remember how he got saddled with this girl in the first place. She was just too determined for her own good. Soon, he'd have to call on some favours, damn it.

xxx

Sarutobi felt a headache coming on due to the fact that the little girl just wouldn't stop beating the wooden dummy. Thinking back, he remembered seeing the last surviving Uchiha doing the same just last night, but without the strong impacts Hinata's was causing, splintering yet another dummy efficiently.

Fugaku had trained her well, he acknowledged, but maybe it was time to redirect her attention from the deceased Uchiha and taijutsu towards something she had yet to learn. From what Shikaku had told him, she was very interested in medicine. Unfortunately, Shikaku was no medic-nin and therefore could only teach her the little medical herbs and salves.

He really had to remind himself to find a suitable medic-nin to train her.

But that was beside the point, he may very well find a suitable sensei to teach her genjutsu in the very least. He thought about this as she made the proper seals for a Bunshin no Jutsu and started to spar against five other clones of herself. His mouth opened and he could feel his pipe begin to slip from his mouth before he quickly closed it.

Honestly, what did Fugaku and Shikaku teach this child?

But nevertheless, she needed another person to look up to... maybe a woman this time.

xxx

"Alright, Hinata," Sarutobi said to the girl sitting at the other side of his desk. "I have someone I want you to meet."

Numbly, she looked around, wanting to get away and back to the dummy she had been beating on the last few days. Did the Hokage not understand that she had to be stronger for Konoha's sake? But no matter where she searched, she saw no one.