chaptah 3! please enjoy!

Chapter 3

"You know, you remind me of him sometimes."

"Really?" Himawari asked, pleased that she had been compared to someone she so admired.

"You're more like him than Naruto or I." Hinata replied, adding another flower to the daisy chain she was making. Himawari finished patting in the soil around the two sunflowers she'd rehomed – right in front of the marble slab that read "Hyuga Neji".

Hinata traced the kanji with a soil-caked fingernail. She claimed not to like sunflowers because of the allusion to her name, but truth be told, they were one of her favorite things in the world because they reminded her of her uncle. After all, for as long as she could remember Himawari had been coming to lay sunflowers at Neji's grave.

Althought Himawari had never known Neji when he'd been living, he felt like a real uncle to her. As if he was always there, just out of sight. She knew as much as her parents did about the man. Who he truly was, how he would respond to every question.

"Do you think Ojisan watches over us?" she asked absently.

"Every day." Hinata smiled.

Himawari looked up, out over the rows and rows of grave markers. A tall form stuck out near the edge of the cemetery. Himawari squinted. "Who's that?"

Hinata raised her head from the daisy chain and lifted a hand to shade her eyes, following her daughter's gaze.

"Kakashi-sensei." She said, "He's talking to Rin."

"There's no-one but him." Himawari pointed out. Besides, she didn't know anyone by the name of Rin.

"She died in a. . .in an accident." Hinata explained, turning back to her daisies. She brought the head of the first flower through the stem of the last, making a full circle. "He likes to let her know what's going on in the village." Hinata laid the daisy chain around a corner of Neji's marker. "There. The circle symbolizes perfection. He'd like that. Always the perfectionist, Neji-nii."

Hinata stood up and Himawari did the same, wiping her dirt-streaked hands on her jeans.

"Have you been working on your Eight Trigrams at all?" Hinata asked as the two reached the gate to the cemetery.

"I got to sixteen palms yesterday." Himawari answered proudly. Hinata was teaching her and Bolt the beginnings of Hyuga jutsu. Himawari had already passed Bolt in terms of the chakra control required and so was excelling far above him in the Eight Trigrams. Unfortunately, when Naruto had tried to teach them Shadow Clones, hers had been pale and lifeless but Bolt had already managed to generate fifteen perfect clones of himself at one time, which he had been gloating about mercilessly for the past three weeks.

"Good." Hinata nodded. "Keep practicing and you'll eventually get to sixty-four, maybe even a hundred twenty-eight."

….

Himawari had made up her mind. She hated her sensei.

She hated the way he was always cheerful.

She hated how nothing bothered him.

She hated that he already knew how she thought.

She hated how he was always right.

Most of all, she hated how he had ways of forcing his team to work together without them even realizing it. Like on the Hokage's face when they'd come up against the shadow clone. Only the three of them together had managed to overcome it.

"Fire style, Fireball jutsu!" Himawari leaped to avoid Sarada's jutsu, feeling the heat pass by her.

"Lightning Style, Chakra Senbon!" Himawari retaliated by spinning her chakra into sharp needles crackling with energy. Sarada avoided some and deflected the rest with kunai, but hissed as one ripped her sleeve and cut her shoulder. The chakra would burn her more than a normal senbon, and would probably shock her a little due to its Lightning nature.

"Good!" Konohamaru called from the sidelines, "Keep going!"

Konohamaru was having his students spar to force them to find each others' weakness – they could function better as a team when they knew where the others needed work. Taro picked grass beside Hibiki, sulking because he'd lost his spar with Sarada earlier.

If only she'd let me get close. Himawari leaped grimly from tree branch to tree branch. Sarada had done her homework on the Byakugan and knew that if she let Himawari get in too close, the Gentle Fist would make short work of her.

Likewise, if Himawari got too close to Sarada, there was always the risk of making eye contact and getting caught in the Sharingan's genjutsu. She was lucky that they didn't share chakra nature, otherwise Sarada would be able to imitate her jutsu.

Himawari quickly tied a paper bomb to one of her kunai and tossed it at Sarada's feet, activating the bomb on impact with the ground. Sarada leaped back as Himawari dropped from her place in the tree into the smoke created from the explosion, her Byakugan already activated.

There! She could make out Sarada's chakra through the smoke – if she was lucky, Sarada's visibility would be low and Himawari would be able to cut off her chakra flow before she knew what was happening.

But Sarada was already out of the haze and in the clear air, as Himawari found out when she neared the other girl and was met with a flash of red eyes before Sarada disappeared.

Damn! Genjutsu!

Himawari held two fingers up in a handsign, focusing on stabilizing her chakra flow where it had been disrupted by the genjutsu. "Release!"

"Too late." Sarada's voice sounded behind her and the cold metal of a kunai was pressed to her neck.

"Got you now." Himawari smirked, her hand flashing up to Sarada's wrist. She hit a chakra point and Sarada's hand went limp, the kunai falling onto the grass with a muted thump. "Don't underestimate the Hyuga Clan."

Sarada leaped out of range but not before Himawari hit a few good chakra points with her Gentle Fist.

But they had been fighting for ten minutes now and she was getting tired. In a few seconds, she'd have to deactivate the Byakugan to let her chakra recharge, and then it would be a whole lot harder to detect genjutsu.

Hold on, what was that? There were two Saradas, one in front of her and one coming up behind her. She quickly checked the chakra of both. One was a Shadow Clone – an exact copy. Even with several of her chakra points closed up, Sarada was still able to make a flawless Shadow Clone. It grated on Himawari even more now that she knew both her brother and her rival had outstripped her in that degree.

Himawari decided to go first for the one behind her as she was forced to deactivate her Byakugan, fairly certain that it was the clone. The instant she turned towards it, the other one rushed her, tackling her in a matter of seconds.

"The Hyuga are nothing compared to the Uchiha." Sarada said, pinning Himawari's wrists to the ground. She noticed with a tinge of relief that Sarada's eyes were their normal back color. It looked like she'd run out of chakra as well.

"Say that again." Himawari snarled, kneeing Sarada in the stomach, "I dare you."

"I said." Sarada rasped, catching her breath, "That the Hyuga will always be inferior to the Uchiha."

"I'll tell you who's inferior!" Himawari spat, still scrabbling with Sarada. A fingernail scratched her face, leaving a red mark and her clothes were stained with grass. "Is my mother inferior? Is my grandfather inferior? Is Neji inferior?!"

"Your mother is too soft! Your grandfather is too old to perform jutsu! Your uncle is dead!"

"My uncle was a hero!" Himawari landed a sharp jab on Sarada's nose, sending her glasses flying into the grass, and received a punch to her jaw in return. She tasted blood as her tongue got caught between her teeth.

"No, he was a normal Shinobi. He did only what was expected of him, nothing more!" Sarada replied angrily.

"He gave his life to protect my parents. I owe him my own life!"

"Enough!" Konohamaru reached down to pick up Sarada's glasses. Amazingly, they were still intact. The girls took no notice, continuing to go at each other.

"Don't try to make like he's special since he saved the Hokage." Sarada scoffed, "At that point in time, nobody would've thought that some little upstart like him would be Hokage anyway."

All Himawari could see was red as they rolled around on the grass, until she was yanked away from Sarada roughly by the collar.

"I said," Konohamaru growled, "Enough." He turned to Sarada in his right hand. "You will be mindful of what you say about your Hokage." Then he swung around to face Himawari in his left hand. "You. . .holy shit."

Himawari looked down at her hands, following his gaze. They looked like they were on fire, red chakra crawling up her arms. Only now did she notice that they felt like they were on fire. Panicking, she tried to stop the chakra flow, extinguish the fire.

"I – I can't stop it!"

She felt lightheaded. Konohamaru was shaking her roughly and saying something but his voice sounded far away.

And then everything went black.

what did you think? ideas on what exactly is going on with Hima-chan? review!

-oldsoul