"I will be taking charge of her training from now on."
Hiding in the kitchen, behind the wall that separated it from the dining room, Himawari felt like bouncing around the room in glee and crowing from the roof of her home the best news she's ever had the chance to overhear.
She couldn't believe her ears. Aunt Hanabi was going to train her to be a kunoichi!
Oh, this was wonderful! Finally, she'll be able to catch up to her brother and his friends, and she'll be strong like mother and father too!
"Have her at the front gates by seven o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Yes, sister-"
The sharp, familiar sound of flesh striking flesh nearly made the girl jump. That was a slap! What part of a conversation regarding her future training would warrant a slap?
Peeking around the edge of the doorway, Himawari's stomach dropped at the sight before her.
Sitting adjacent to one another at the dinner table, Aunt Hanabi's arm remained outstretched, slightly away from mother's face, fingers held tight together, sharp and deadly like the blade of a sword.
Her mother, head turned sideways from the force of the strike, was apparently too stunned by the contact to right herself for the moment. The red mark blooming on her cheek could rival the colour of the setting sun.
"You will refer to me by title, Uzumaki, and nothing else. Understand?" There's venom in Aunt Hanabi's voice that the girl has never, ever heard before. Where was this all coming from? This wasn't like her!
"My apologies, Lady Hyūga. It won't happen again." Quiet and unshaken, her mother's voice is the same as always as she turns to face Aunt Hanabi again. Like this has happened many, many times before.
"It better not." Aunt Hanabi slowly lowered her hand so that it re-joined the other resting in her lap.
Quickly ducking back behind the wall, the young Uzumaki was just considering sneaking out the back door when the Head of the Hyūga's voice called to her.
"I don't have all day to waste. Come out and present yourself, child."
Heart hammering in her throat, Himawari nearly tripped over her own toes as she shuffled out to the dining room. Her blue eyes flickered from her feet, to Aunt Hanabi, and then back again, before a cold hand pulled her head up by her hair, forcing her to look into the cold, pupil-less eyes of the older woman. In that brief moment of fear, Himawari had forgotten that the Head of the Hyūga clan was also an active ninja; her stealth and speed were the envy of many in their village.
"I see that bad manners run in the family." Aunt Hanabi accuses as she looks over the girl, the veins around her eyes pulsing as she inspects the girl through the Byakugan. "Perhaps I will have to teach you proper etiquette as well as how to be a kunoichi, since your mother is incapable of teaching you both."
Releasing the Byakugan, and Himawari's hair, Aunt Hanabi stepped away from Himawari as she collapsed to the floor, shaking like a leaf in the breeze. She couldn't believe the feelings of animosity and disdain she felt from the Head of the Hyūga clan. There was no way that this woman standing in their dining room was really Aunt Hanabi. She had never shown such coldness and cruelty towards their family in all the years that she's known her. Who was this woman? Where was the real Aunt Hanabi?!
"At the very least, she's healthy. I guess you've done something right with her upbringing, pitiful as it is. She won't be a complete waste of time," Aunt Hanabi talks about her like she isn't in the room, even though she's glaring down her nose at her as if she is something worse than dirt. "I hope."
Mother says nothing. Remains quiet despite the insults and violence and the talking down to as if this was normal for her, like this was how Aunt Hanabi has always behaved around her. She just sits and stares down at her half empty cup of tea, and for a moment, Himawari feels a small bubble of anger rising within her. Why wasn't mother doing anything? Why was she allowing this?!
Though nothing on her face showed it, Aunt Hanabi seemed satisfied that her words and actions were not met with any form of protest or resistance as she made her way to the front door of the Uzumaki residence. "I expect the first payment to be made to the clan's bank account by Friday, or I will retract my offer." She says, sweeping out the front door to be flanked by her personal guards. It is only once she has passed the threshold that mother finally moves from her seat to see her sister off.
There aren't any more words to exchange when mother closes the door. No 'goodbye' that Himawari could hear from where she was, still lying on the dining room floor, scared from the encounter with that woman whom she wasn't sure was Aunt Hanabi or not.
Mother doesn't even check on her when she returns to the dining room, instead going straight to the dining table to clean up after her talk with Lady Hyūga, piling the teacups and empty plate onto one hand and taking the teapot by the handle with the other. Her voice hardly carries out of the kitchen when she tells the girl to pick herself up off the floor and to go clean herself up.
Himawari didn't listen to her, her mind working frantically to try and make sense of Aunt Hanabi's sudden change of character and mother's indifference towards the harsh treatment the pair of them received.
This wasn't what she knew to be normal. Not once in all the years she has known her aunt has she ever shown any sign of being anything than the kind and supportive younger sister to her mother and doting aunt to her and her brother. Perhaps a frank and cunning clan leader, but never cruel.
Himawari couldn't see any reason for the sudden shift in behaviour. It just didn't make any sense!
But if this was Aunt Hanabi's usual behaviour, then surely mother wouldn't send her off to be trained under the Head of the Hyūga clan just because they were blood related. She wouldn't willingly put her youngest child, her own daughter, through such a horrible experience just to ensure her future as a kunoichi.
… Would she?