She remembers as a child watching the rays of the sun glisten across the wooden floor; her small, fragile frame sprawled against the smooth grain. She thought that maybe she was like the shadows, unable to exist unless it was through the light of another.
She remembers being a bit older, enduring her father's shameful silence after another failed lesson. She wants to apologize, to explain that she could never become what he wants her to be. After all, she was only a shadow, and a shadow can never define themselves, no matter how much they long to do so.
She remembers starting at the academy, how everyone's gaze seemed to drift over her, never quite seeing her. She was only a shadow, and there were so many people with their own flames here, so why would anyone notice the darkness.
She remembers the day she first saw him. He should have been a shadow like her, he had no right to be anything else, yet he shined with a radiance that even dwarfed the sun. And for the first time ever, she wanted to be more than a shadow, she wanted others to see her and bathe in the glow that she gave. But she was only a shadow. But she would be his shadow.
She remembers the disdain in her cousin's voice as his jarring light overcame her. How her body started to tremble as she began to recede back into the darkness that she had tried so hard to step out of. The bitter despair as she realized how silly she had been, she was a shadow, how could she ever have hoped to one day be something more. Then he called out to her, and she started to wonder how he could see a shadow.
She's watching the light dance across the darkness.
Her chest hurts so much and she keeps choking on the blood in her mouth, but she knows that she must stand. She can stand. As she pushes her body up off the cold floor, the light keeps dancing across her eyes. She knows that it is hers, no more then a flicker from a small candle. Despite the pain she's feeling and the certainty that she will lose this fight, she smiles. Because for the first time in her life, Hinata knows that she has a light of her own for all to see.