Nagi Hyuuga, the daughter and only child of the late Hizashi Hyuuga graduates at five.
Braiding her hair up in a bun is made easier by the Byakugan and she secures it with the least embellished kanzashi she can find from the box that was her mother's memento.
It's the first time that she does her hair.
She picks up the hitai-ate from her bedside and looks at her reflection in the mirror. The Caged Bird Seal is stark against pale skin, and she smiles as she secures the headband over it, pushing up her bangs.
The jacket she has is something she bought that had reminded her of her father's genin clothes and is similar to the jacket that her alternate male version wore. It's a bit large, still, but the sleeves are short and it doesn't do anything considerable to hamper her movements.
It just makes her look cute which she's not entirely against.
It has its advantages.
XxXxXxXxXxXx
Jerking awake, Nagi Hyuuga finds herself curled beside her futon, heaving the dinner she had last night before she can even begin to comprehend what happened.
The door is thrown open.
"Nagi! What-!" Her father kneels beside his four year old daughter in concern, brushing her hair aside.
Panting, Nagi stares at her own vomit staining the tatami mats. She cringe when her father's chakra spikes in a pattern. Calling for assistance, she assumes.
It's quiet. The air is warm from the heater. The night is cold and so are her insides.
A large hand draws soothing circles on her back, and her father's familiar baritone hums a familiar song.
Nothing elaborate. Just something he'd made up to lull her to sleep when she was a baby.
The repeated notes unwind the knots her muscles have become (limbs firm for someone so young, prodigy).
"Did you have a nightmare, Nagi?"
... Did she?
She looks up, to tell him she doesn't know, has no idea what could've turned her stomach, (but she won't push, and maybe he won't either, because it's been quite a while since she'd slept beside him and she missed him)-
Hizashi Hyuuga watch her in concern and for one split second the dark and the Hyuuga eyes trick her into the thought of 'Oh, is this what a dead person looks like?'-
She hurls again.
XxXxXx
When Nagi wakes up the next day, she turns to her side and curses fate.
It has only been a month since Hyuuga Hiashi killed the Kumo ninja that attempted to kidnap Hinata-sama on the night of her third birthday.
Two days until Nagi is to be sealed.
A few weeks until Kumo and Konoha hash out something, but by this point, there's nothing she can do.
Nagi hates fate and the tricks it insists on playing.
If she was going to regain her memories of a past life(?) anyways, why now when it's already too late yet still early enough for doomed hope.
The feeling chokes her and burns her eyes and fills her chest with something unpleasant.
Nagi hates hate.
She wasn't capable of something this dark just a few hours ago and now it feels as if it can devour her so effortlessly. Like a demon she'd unintentionally invited inside. It writhes under her skin, and claws at her throat, and makes her tears scald. It's easily twisting her in its grasp into another person.
She has only a few minutes to stew in that cocktail of despair and hatehateheatehate before Hizashi slides the door open, having returned from escorting the healer out.
"Nagi. Are you feeling better now?"
Seeing him made the resentment, indignation, desperation, regret, bitterness, and afraidafraidafraidhatehatehate in her flare, soliciting a fit of coughs.
What was the point, she almost prefers herself not to remember, to be able to spend her last few days with her father with an easy mind.
She hates that thought too.
"Tou-san. I feel horrible." She whines, the inflection of a child's seemingly immaterial troubles sneaking into her voice, as if to discount her distress.
Horrible.
It barely encompass the enormity of her feelings.
He frown as he close the door behind him and sits beside her. He rest his hand on her head.
"You have a fever. You must've pushed yourself these past few days."
She meets his gaze and it must've been the misery in them that makes him pause.
"Tou-san, I love you... please don't leave me."
What a terrible daughter.
She knows, and what is she thinking this will do.
Nagi is four years old and just wants her father to know.
"... did you have a nightmare?"
Maybe it would've hurt more if he'd said yes, because then she might've clung to that illusion of hope one can only get from the absolute faith of a child to their parent's word.
Still.
It hurt.
She hums, her body and mind sluggish, "Aah. Nightmare. You..."
You were dead.
She knows what he'll say.
It was just a nightmare.
Nagi chokes down the words because she isn't a masochist.
"Tou-san, let's eat soba."
Hizashi studies her.
Nagi thinks it won't be so bad if he can somehow see through her thoughts, the memories she got, if only the Hyuuga eyes truly are all-seeing.
But he doesn't and she hates that.
Hates that she can hate something about him.
Hateshateshates-
Her father huffs a laugh and smiles at her fondly.
And in a moment that managed to both terrify and relieve her, the dark twisted thing half entwined in her heart immediately eases and stills.
"Of course. We'll have lunch together."
Suddenly, a ridiculous thought appears in her mind.
One she imagine her alternate version must've wanted to tell their father too, if only to ascertain what they already know.
But he never had the chance and she does.
"Otou-san-"
He reach over her and to the cloth half-soaked in a tub of cold water. Squeezing it and then folding it to place on her forehead.
"Hm?"
"Otou-san. Fate is cruel?"
... It came out more as a question.
He freezes in his place.
Certainly, he'll agree.
Certainly...
Her eyes are closed, when did it happen? How long did that pause last?
"It is." he says quietly and it rings in her.
"That's why, please create your own destiny."
Huh?
Hizashi isn't looking at her as he tucks her in.
"... Destiny?" she mutters.
"Aah. Fate is just is. It just happens. Fate is how I was born after my brother by mere seconds. No one has control over Fate. Destiny... Destiny is how I pursued your mother, and how I took that one extra kunai on that mission, or... or how I will do my best, to give you a life of peace."
She suppose... it should've been obvious his answer would be different when confronted by his own child.
He is a good father, she thinks. He doesn't want to kill his daughter's faith in the world, not when she's still so young.
Not... not the best shinobi, then. But a good father.
And against her better judgement, she finds herself accepting his words like only a child can to the absolute wisdom of their parent.
Nagi believes in destiny. There is no going against fate, because fate is never what will happen but what happens.
It was fate that she awakened her past life's (?) memory, and it was fate that it just so happened that the previous her had ended her life equipped with this knowledge. She had no choice in those, didn't consciously do it for a purpose but fate still decreed it.
Destiny is to take fate in your hands and shape it.
She still hates that she's too late.