A/N: This is an AU. The same AU of 'Child of Wind, Son of Fire'. You ought to read the last three chapters to get the context here.
When she was born, they called her 'princess'.
She came into the world with a gentle cry. Such pleasing little sounds of joy that invoked a tiny smile from her ever stoic father. Her soft cherubic cheeks lit up with rosy colours. Her wide eyes wandered around, gazing into everything with piqued curiosity and clarity so unlike a newborn. She was gentle as a tiny babe, stuttering into silence upon meeting her father's eyes, hiding her face into the soft blanket when dozens of wrinkled concerned eyes peered into her mother's embrace to meet her gaze.
They looked at her and see the princess—the future leader of their clan.
They said that it was a destiny. Born in the same year, she was destined to be the rival to the younger prince of the fire-breathing illusionist clan.
They expected her to grow alongside him as a formidable opponent, embracing the centuries-long rivalry of the two clans with the most unique dojustu.
At barely a few hours old, Hyuuga Hinata was a princess with a destiny set in place.
At three, they started to notice.
They noticed her polite apologetic bow when she bumped onto the servants—though they expected her to hold her chin high and reprimand the servants for getting into the princess' way.
They noticed the hunch of her shoulders when she met a new person—though they expected her to stare into the person's eyes and reminded them that she saw everything, including their vile inner intentions.
They noticed the flush of her cheeks as she trailed after her older cousin—though they expected her to stand regal and demanded respect from the branch family's son.
They noticed the way her eyes shied away from meeting the Uchiha prince's eyes—though they expected her to square her shoulders and met his gaze as an equal.
At three, they started to notice that she has deviated from the destiny that she was supposed to walk on.
At five, they saw chances.
Her sister was born with a loud shrill cry as if demanding her presence to be acknowledged. The little babe cried and demanded attention, making sure that everyone in the household tended to her needs as the older sister peeked from behind the door—her innocent eyes widened with childish wonder. The little babe was defiant, a spark of fire instead of the flicker her older sister was as she screamed at Hyuuga Hiashi's face and squirmed in her mother's embrace.
The wrinkled eyes saw a spitfire violently fighting, so unlike the tame flickering flame that they saw five years ago.
They looked at her, and planned to pit the tiny little babe as her competition. She needed motivation.
Ignoring the world, Hinata trotted carefully through their scheming gaze to meet her little sister. She held out a tentative hand and waited for the babe to swat it away—
—only to smile in joy when the tiny chubby fingers grasped her own in a tight grip.
Hinata instantly fell in love.
At five, Hinata swore to protect her own challenger.
At seven, they whispered scorns.
One fated encounter and she earned her clan's scorns as her heart learned to adore someone that was not her kin.
She was at one of the elders' meeting, as expected of the heiress of the Hyuuga. Konoha was on the brink of war, her father had said. She was supposed to be there to make connections with the rest of the future Clan Head while the adults dealt with their politics and warring issue.
Though, what would one expect from a bunch of children hanging around in a makeshift nursery filled with masked babysitters? They might be future Clan Head, but they were children.
The making connections didn't exactly happen as the elders' wanted.
Hinata knew no one here.
The Nara and Akamichi heirs were in each other's company, lazing around playing a board game with the younger heir of the Inuzuka clan sniffing around them—a white puppy trotted behind the unruly boy. The silent Aburame's heir was sitting at the corner, murmuring hushed words to the little terrarium he has brought to this gathering.
She was the weird one—being the only girl from the prominent clans considering that the Yamanaka's heiress has come down with an illness at the very last minute—and the only other oddball in this gathering of respectable children were the elder prince of the Uchiha clan.
Uchiha Itachi was several years older than the rest of them and seemed content to simply sit there with his watchful gaze trained on the toddling children.
Hinata was about to approach him—weirdos stick together, right?—when a blur of orange crashed onto her, sending them both tumbling into an ungraceful fall. Hinata squeaked underneath the warm weight atop her and opened her eyes to meet vibrant blue eyes.
It was the Hokage's son.
"Sorry!" the vibrant ball of energy apologised, before bouncing off her in favour of stomping towards the corner of the room. "Oi, Gaara! Stop sulking in the corner. I can see you, you know?"
Hinata tilted her head to see the tuft of red hair curled up behind the counter and instantly felt a wash of pity.
The servants of her household were horrible gossips.
She knew that the red-haired boy was a refuge from Suna—driven away from his strange infertile lands by a father that wished to murder him.
She heard of the recent death of his uncle, and this meeting itself might be held to determine his fate now that he was an orphan.
The foreign boy has been far more withdrawn after that tragedy.
If before, Hinata could see him slowly trotting after the Hokage's son, dragging his teddy bear with him in complete silence. Now, she didn't even see the hunched red-haired around the playground.
To lose his only family must have been hard on him.
Hinata could not imagine how could she even cope if she lost Hanabi.
Understanding dawned on her face. Slowly, Hinata trotted towards the bookshelves, feeling Itachi's amused gaze on her while keeping an eye on the Hokage's son and the foreign boy. She stood on her toes, wanting to reach for the coloured papers on a higher shelf, only to blink in pleasant shock when a taller shadow loomed over her and retrieved the papers for her.
"What do you wish to do, Hinata-hime?" Uchiha Itachi smiled, offering the papers to her.
Hinata flushed a shade of pink, embarrassed for being so helpless that a rival clan has to interfere.
But then, her attention was redirected towards the way Naruto was gently holding Gaara in the corner, noticing the tremble of the shorter red-haired boy and her embarrassment vanished. Hinata pursed her lips and pointed to the papers.
"Origami," she said, flushing deeper when her gaze fell on the boys at the corner. "As a friendship gift."
Itachi smiled and nodded obediently. The older boy sat in front of her and helped her fold the papers to multiple cute shapes that she wanted to gift to the rest of the children.
Gaara's eyes widened with wonder when she presented him with an origami of red cat.
Hinata saw the tiniest quirk of a smile that appeared on the foreign boy's face and promptly beamed up towards Itachi, emitting gratefulness and adoration to a kind boy of a rival clan that felt very much like an older brother to her than her cold cousin.
"Thank you, nii-san," she said, wrapping her arms around Itachi's waist at the exact moments the adults walked in.
Itachi beamed and ruffled her hair. "Anytime, Hime-sama."
Pure white eyes seethed at the interaction.
At seven, they whispered scorns upon her back as she looked past the boundaries of the clan that bound her ancestors.
At nine, they started to lose hope.
They lose hope in her. The princess they hoped to be a formidable rival of the Uchiha clan ended up like a stuttering flicker of flame as compared to the brazen campfire of Uchiha Sasuke.
Sasuke aced the academy's classes without hindrances—only slightly behind Gaara and Naruto. Trailing close behind them was Shino. Nonetheless, the four top students left the rest of them in the dust.
They didn't try to compare her to the jinchuuriki brothers because it was a stupid comparison.
Despite Naruto's obvious disregard about the theoretical part of the academy, the boy's strength was far advanced as compared to children his age. The massive amount of chakra the boy naturally had was well-honed under the supervision of his father, thus causing Naruto to completely ace the taijutsu and chakra control classes. The blonde was not as good as Sasuke in the shuriken class, but what he was lacking there he made it up with his creativity in ninjutsu use.
(To use only henge jutsu to bring down their teachers and the Sandaime into a pool of blood loss was a feat they all will remember till the end of their life.)
On the other hand, Naruto's foreign adoptive brother, Gaara, was at a whole new level. The red-haired boy lagged in the exams, following Naruto's lead in disregarding the written part, thus allowing Sasuke to top the class—but, when it came to the practical classes, he was a master. Gaara credited it as an attempt to be resourceful to make up for his limited resource of sand, but not even their peers who came from doton-oriented family has mastered the doton elemental jutsu as he did.
It was not a surprise though. The jinchuuriki brothers were trained by the most elite of ANBU.
Not to mention, that occasionally, lucky citizens of Konoha could see flashes of yellow and clumsy stumbling blurs of orange and red from the Hokage's training ground as the Hokage himself oversaw his sons' improvement as shinobi.
Compared to the top three students of the academy, Hinata was still crawling.
The princess of Hyuuga clan was a crawling weakling as compared to the genius prince of Uchiha clan.
And in the midst of her failure, Hanabi bloomed as a strong kunoichi.
It personally didn't matter to her. Hinata loved Hanabi—probably just as much as how Itachi loved Sasuke—thus her sister's prowess only invoked pride and joy within her. The exhilarating feeling of sparring with her strong little sister was one of the few moments in Hyuuga's compound that Hinata enjoyed.
But Hiashi has made his disappointment clear, pitting the sisters against each other to find the strongest princess.
Hinata was nursing her injury when Itachi found her hiding place.
He didn't say anything, but simply took off his ANBU mask and offered a small container of soothing balm to her. Hinata gratefully accepted the offering, swallowing her voice that wanted to ask his point of view—the point of view of an elder sibling who was chased by the younger one instead of having to chase the younger sibling like Hinata was. Did it feel nice, to be superior to his younger sibling? Or did the desperate flicker in Sasuke's eyes—the desperate needs to catch up to his elder brother—has made Itachi cursed his superiority?
Hinata remembered the tears in Hanabi's eyes when the younger girl struck her down. Hanabi's cry of horror calling her name when Hinata crumpled in pain was far more painful than her torn muscle.
Hinata squeezed her eyes shut and wished desperately that Hanabi never doubt nor curse her strength because of her elder sister's weaknesses.
It wasn't Hanabi's fault that Hinata was weak.
At nine, the Hyuuga clan lost hope in their princess and to be honest, she did too.
At twelve, they no longer noticed.
They didn't notice the sleepless nights Hinata spent by the stream to perfect her jutsu.
They didn't notice when she snuck out to the Uchiha compound and pleaded the young Uchiha Clan Head to spar with her.
They didn't notice the bruises and scrapes on her once pristine skin—all were courtesy of her constant training.
There was simply no chance for her to give up. There was no excuse. Not after all those years looking upon her friends' back and saw that they—despite being strong and powerful on their own—still worked twice harder than common people.
Being teamed with Shino revealed that the Aburame was constantly enhancing and improving his control over his insects. The boy didn't talk much because he was trying to nurture a difficult species of insects in his throat.
Having a crush on Naruto led her to discover that despite having the ANBU and the Hokage as his guides, the blonde boy still trained hard until he literally bled from his skin and passed out cold out of exhaustion.
Following Naruto led her to discover that Gaara has purposely limited his sand. The adoptive son of Yondaime Hokage was constantly learning new jutsu that could make up for his disadvantages if his sand was ever inhibited.
Sparring with Itachi always ended up with fond regaling of Sasuke's daily training. Despite being a genius, the younger Uchiha was constantly training and perfecting his already outstanding jutsu and abilities.
Those four were the strongest of their batch, yet they worked so hard.
Hinata has no choice. She chased after their backs with a hope that one day, she would catch up.
When Naruto pummel Neji to the ground in the weaklings' defence, Hinata knew that they have no choice but to catch up. There was no way she and the rest of their class would give up when Naruto looked at them in the eyes, one by one, and sworn that when he became the Hokage, their class—the whole lot of weaklings they were—were going to become his trusted swords and shields.
How could you disappoint such faith?
At twelve, the Hyuuga clan didn't notice the princess' resolve.
And to be honest, she didn't care.
Hinata knew the news long before it spread.
The Uchiha compound felt more familiar to her than her own home. Itachi was like the older brother she wished she could find in Neji and Sasuke wasn't as cold as one would have thought once you have seen him chasing a cat down the hallway half-naked with remnants of drools on his face.
Obito was rarely there, but when he started to visit on weekends with Kakashi in tow, the empty Uchiha compound was a riot that one would never see in the Hyuuga's compound. Hinata loved it here. There might be only three living Uchiha left and only four sharingan wielders, but it felt more alive than the stiff awkward atmosphere in the Hyuuga compound.
So, once the chaos of the revived founders has settled, the compound become livelier with the addition of the two infamous Uchiha ancestors.
(Watching Izuna teasingly flirted with Tsunade—much to Madara's mortification and Tobirama's irritation—was priceless. Hinata would have been worried about their dynamics, considering that Izuna was reanimated as a teen while Tsunade was in her fifties, but a discreet wink from the long-haired Uchiha and a slight tip of his head to the scowling Jiraiya was enough to make Hinata giggled.
Kill three birds in one stone—mortify Madara, irritate Tobirama and push the two Sannin together.
Uchiha Izuna was a genius.)
Regardless, when Uchiha Madara opened his dojo to children of all clans, Hinata was among the firsts to kneel and beg to be accepted as a student.
When she overheard Madara weighed the idea of having a disciple of his own like Tobirama was with Gaara—she felt her heart stopped and anticipation rose up her chest.
Her sparring with Itachi always felt much more natural than it was with her fellow Hyuuga.
When she heard him to consider taking only children with affinities similar to the Uchiha clan as his disciple, Hinata has ran to Kurenai and requested her sensei to check her nature affinities.
Her chakra paper burnt to a bright blue flame. Whatever left of the burnt remains was wrinkled beyond belief.
Fire and lightning.
She was fire and lightning—just like Sasuke.
Maybe, this was her destiny.
Hinata grasped the largest scorched remains of the wrinkled chakra paper and ran back to Uchiha compound, running past Itachi and bounded straight to where Madara was sitting by the koi pond.
She screeched into a halt, thrust the paper towards him and bowed her body at such an acute degree of utter politeness as she blurted out;
"Please accept me as your disciple, Madara-sama!"
He was eerily silent for what it felt like eternity but Hinata didn't yield. She kept her posture polite even when she heard the rustles of his yukata moving about. She didn't flinch when she felt the looming powerful heat of his chakra as he stood right in front of her. She kept her eyes wide open when he tilted her chin up and his sharingan whirled viciously to life.
He was Uchiha Madara. She honestly didn't expect any less as an acceptance test.
Hinata kept her gaze into his sharingan, allowing the genjutsu to sink in even when he used her greatest nightmare against her.
Hanabi was dying.
Her precious little sister was dying—her warm blood was drenching Hinata's body—and with a voice so soft and weak, Hyuuga Hanabi asked;
"Why didn't you save me?"
Hinata cried and cradled the small bloody body of her beloved sister.
"Because I'm not strong enough," she murmured, kissing Hanabi's forehead. "Not yet, at least."
Naruto was dead.
Well, he was not physically dead but the way his eyes stared blankly at Gaara and the Yondaime's corpses might as well made him already spiritually and emotionally dead.
It took seconds before the howls of rage erupted and the blonde boy manifested into terrifying red silhouette swearing vengeance and screaming sorrow.
"I have faith in you."
Hinata's breath hitched, remembering Naruto's faith in all of them and couldn't help but cried again. Though, she swallowed the sobs and looked back into the slitted pupils filled with fury, shoulders squared as she reached out for the scorching red chakra.
Hinata winced. The burn of his chakra hurt.
But, she didn't waver.
"Please hold on to that faith a little longer," she promised to the burning rage. "I'm heading there."
Neji has gone mad.
His eyes were pure madness, hair curtained his face in a hectic mess. They were in the Hyuuga's compound, the bodies of her kinsmen littered the streets—their blood dripped from the sword in Neji's hand. It was the exact reminisce of the aftermath of the Uchiha's massacre, only with the Hyuuga clan being murdered. He fixed his gaze on her, his Byakugan came to life.
"This clan is cursed," he growled, gaze skittering past Hinata to glare at Hiashi's bloodied corpse. "You curse your own kin!"
Hinata's chest hurt.
She never agreed with the curse that her father put on her dear cousin's family.
"I'm sorry," she said, staggering towards him. She didn't flinch when he moved, bracing the pain of his sword through her body with only a determined grimace. "Neji-niisan. I'm sorry."
The hilt of his sword touched her stomach when she finally could embrace him.
"I swear, I'm going to get rid of our clan's curse."
This time, she felt that she actually meant those words.
Neji faded into a new vision.
In the real world, Madara cocked an eyebrow, turning around to shoot Itachi a questioning look.
"I have never cared about the boundaries of the clan," the young Clan Head shrugged, sipping on his tea.
"She is a Hyuuga."
"I'm aware."
"Her clan—"
"She still makes an adorable baby sister."
Itachi was gone.
For once, Hinata wept for the absence of his Mangekyou. She always feared and despised those swirling red eyes—fear them because of their power, and despised them because she knew that Itachi has lost so much to gain such a powerful upgrade of his sharingan.
But this. This was so much worse.
Hinata pressed her hands over his chest, trying to cover the gaping hole in his cold body.
"Itachi-nii," she whimpered, cradling his cold body and completely avoiding staring into the depth of the empty sockets of his eyes. "Nii-chan."
Curse all bloodline hunters to the depths of hell.
"An Uchiha and a Hyuuga in the same day?" the masked ninja in front of her hummed, eyeing her with greed. "This is my lucky day."
The man flaunted Itachi's stolen eyes in front of the sobbing girl.
Hinata remembered Hanabi's dying words. She remembered Naruto's burning rage and the dead stare of his cherished father and brother. She remembered Neji's madness.
She looked down at Itachi's cold corpse.
She could've stopped all of those if only she was stronger.
This time, Hinata felt rage.
She abandoned Itachi's corpse, her Byakugan came to life with the ferocity of a vicious lioness. Her anger burnt so hotly it was white like her eyes. Curling her lips into a determined line, Hinata slipped into the beginning kata of her family's infamous jutsu.
"Return. Those. Eyes."
Hyuuga Hinata didn't wait for a response.
Madara was lucky he still has his sharingan activated.
To be caught off-guard by his hopeful future disciple while she was still in his genjutsu, in front of his descendant at that, would be super embarrassing, considering who he was.
He caught her fluid hands before she could hit his chakra points, feeling the flare of her vicious rageful chakra and couldn't help but feel a sense of pride when it was the images of Itachi's death that pushed her to snap.
Hashirama's dream would come true if the current youth was like this.
You would not catch a Hyuuga being angry over an Uchiha's misfortune back then during his first life.
Madara smiled and retracted his genjutsu. He was pleased and satisfied.
The legendary Uchiha didn't even wait for Hinata to blink when he said;
"Tomorrow. At dawn."
At twelve, Hinata let the Hyuuga clan seethed.
Uchiha Madara quirked a smirk, preening in morbid amusement when the Hyuuga elders gaped upon seeing him at their door as he escorted his new disciple home after a whole day of gruelling training. Hinata bowed respectfully towards him—her jackets singed, and her face bruised but her smile was still bright as she bid him good night.
"Thank you, sensei!" she cheerfully waved at him. "Have a pleasant night!"
Madara activated his sharingan just long enough to capture the seething mortification that was on the Hyuuga elders' faces.
He could barely restrain his cackle once he was out of the rival clan's compound.
That was priceless.
At twelve, the Hyuuga regretted abandoning their princess.
They let her slip from their grasp, and now their princess has fallen to the rival clan's hands and would be nurtured to the beliefs of the violent fire-breathing illusionist clan.
Their gentle weak princess was going to be raised as a blazing flame that razed the grounds with her gentle touches.
The worst part was—they know that Hyuuga Hinata didn't care.
A/N: A friend mentioned that he wants to see how Hinata was like in this universe since she did end up as Madara's disciple. So, this is the brief outlook of this AU's Hinata.