Summoner-nin
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.
Where was her mama?
The small punches she made on her intruder were too soft, too small and too slow. The kicks she tried to direct towards him lacked strength, power and grace. She was simply too weak, and as the man opened her window and took her outside, she reached her tiny hands out to grab the sill desperately, but he was too strong.
Where was her papa?
She thought of her father as the man, with her in his arms, ran from her house. She wondered if her father would come to save her. She wondered if he would even care. Her thought turned to her weak limbs and instantly tears sprang as she watched her home grow smaller and smaller away from her.
She knew what her father would say.
"You had this coming for being the weakling you are," he would say before turning his back from her, leaving his cold eyes to stare at her eternally as she felt his hatred for her pile up upon her shoulders.
He would leave her to die, because he didn't love her.
Not like mama.
Thinking of her mother, she was suddenly struck with realization. She had promised her mother that she would keep the scroll safe. But with this man taking her away, who knew what would happen to the scroll? Would someone find it and steal it?
"All your fault," her father would accuse.
No. She would never disappoint her mother. She could never bare it if her mother hated her too.
Narrowing her eyes in determination and against the free flowing tears, she bit into the hand of the man. She heard him curse and hiss before she was flung onto the ground, gaining bruises and dirt stains on her white pyjamas. Heaving, she pushed herself up, ignoring the pain as best as she could, and stared at the full-grown man head on.
"Oh, you little bitch," the man sneered. "You're gonna get it now."
Heart trembling in fear and injustice, she positioned herself in a sloppy stance of the infamous Hyuga Gentle Fist, the Jyuuken. Her confidence shook as the man laughed at her, but she held her head steady, even though her stance quivered.
Her mother would have been proud of her. Her mother would have been there to steady her. Her mother would have helped her up and brush away all her scabs and tears.
"M-Mama," she whispered as he ran forward with a fist ready to strike her. "Mama."
She winced, closing her eyes, and waited for the punch to come, but as her eyes winked, a single tear dropped onto the floor, and an invisible ripple formed beneath her. When no punch came, she cautiously opened her eyes and saw the shinobi step back, looking in the sky in awe.
Breathing unsteadily, she slowly followed his line of sight and her own widened at the great bird that floated above her. It was crimson, burning with unearthly flames of flaring fire. The mere heat, so intense that it felt almost cold, wrapped around little Hinata like a mother's arms. Eyes of severe red gems, filled with inner fire, stared long, hard and threateningly down at her kidnapper.
"Hinata-sama!" her uncle cried.
Startled, she turned around, the bird disappearing in an instant. Her uncle had seen it, a godly bird of fire that illuminated the sky, and was looking at her in wonder. But the wonder was short-lived when he turned his attention to the one who had dared to take his niece.
The Cloud-nin saw him too, and was about to make a move when a blur, so fast and fierce that no one could make it out, came crashing into him, sending him flying in the distance, hitting the ground hard several times like a rock skipping on water.
Hinata gave a strangled cry of fear when she saw that the blur was really her father, cold and suppressing great rage. His voice, unstrained and told no one of his true feelings, commanded his brother, "Take her back."
Hizashi quickly retrieved the heiress and ran back to the Main House with a grim face.
The last image she saw was her father coming to the jyuuken stance when she passed out, exhausted for reasons she did not know.
- - -
Days passed by when she found herself kneeling in front of a crack the door made, staring inside the well-lit room where no one was allowed in. She did not know what propelled her to take the chance of spying on her father and his council, but she did know that she was all jittery inside with fear. Every small sound that came from her side of the door, made her jump and wring her hands together, sometimes biting her index fingers in restlessness.
"This is different than before!" her father shouted with such a loud voice that she flinched.
She watched his erratic and out-of-character behaviour and wondered how her father could be so agitated, so panicked. He was the opposite of the composed man she knew who talked nothing save for honour and pride of the Hyuga Clan.
She looked worried at these manners and wondered if she should leave when, all of a sudden, uncle Hizashi kneed her father in the stomach! She bit back a gasp as her father fell to the ground, fastly loosing consciousness.
"W-Why?" her father shuddered for breath. "Y-You have Neji… Why for the Main Family…?"
"That's incorrect," her uncle said, face unbothered from the slight of striking the Hyuga Head. "I hate the Main Family… that's why I am doing this. Not for the family, but for you… my brother. Now I have the freedom to choose, to choose death. To choose my own destiny."
There was a silence so thick that Hinata stopped breathing, just in case.
"Tell Neji this," her uncle said, smiling sadly. "And farewell brother. Take care of your daughters."
She quickly scrambled out of the way as her uncle made for the door, and when he slid it open, he was momentarily surprised to see her there on the floor, looking fearfully up at him. He looked sadly at her before giving her a gentle, almost farewell, smile.
And then he left.
And then he died.
And then she cried.
"Why do you cry, child?"
She looked up from her arms, tears streaming down her face, to see who was approaching her. No one ever approached, but what surprised her the most that it was the bird, the same fiery red bird from before. The giant bird, taking a quarter of the garden, had landed in front of her, staring at her with mild wise eyes.
"I-I…" she trailed, unable to form a coherent sentence in front of this beautiful creature.
"You must tell me soon, for you have not enough chakra to spare," the bird said with concern, spreading its wings slightly to envelope the poor little girl with warmth in hopes of comforting such a fragile thing.
"M-My un-uncle," Hinata stuttered, her hair fluttering at the energy the fire was emitting. "H-He d-d-d-died."
Its voice, flowing and unearthly like the ruby fire that enveloped it, said, "You cry for him, that is understandable. But you should not cry so much, for I am sure your uncle wishes for you to be happy. No doubt, little summoner, he and all your ancestors would want you to be happy and strong. Strong enough to protect the ones you love and the home you live in. Certainly your uncle died for the same reasons."
She nodded, sniffing pathetically.
"Good," the bird said, and began to fade away.
"W-Wait," she cried. "Wh-Who are y-you?"
"I am the Phoenix," the bird answered. "Queen of Fire and Rebirth, Hou-ou."
She blinked as the bird, named Hou-ou, flickered out.
She blinked again to clear her eyes, but all she got was a blurry sky, and then she was out like a light, collapsing right into the arms of one Sarutobi, Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure, Hidden Village of the Leaf.
- - -
the point
