((A/N: Thank you for everyone who favorited, followed, or reviewed for the last chapter! It really means a lot to me. Every one of you put a goofy little grin on my face as I wrote this next chapter (:
The first few chapters of this fic (maybe up to the first 4?) are mostly about me setting up her character and showing what her childhood/teenage years were like. We'll get into the thick of her bakery and her blooming relationship with Kakashi (and the rest of team 7, because I love those kids with my whole heart) afterwards. Thanks for being patient! Enjoy the read!))
Curiously, she never seemed to see Obito or Rin around the village anymore. She saw Kakashi once, months after that fateful meeting on the stone bench, but he looked… Blank. There was simply no other way to explain it. His eyes were cast over like they were empty, devoid of any life at all, and when she called out to him from across the street, he glanced over her as if he didn't see her at all. Then he promptly turned around and disappeared so quick it was as if he had flickered out of existence. None of the three kids ever came by for dango again.
Sometimes, if she looked very closely on the rooftops as she went shopping with her father or took her sisters out for a walk to a local lake, she would spot a figure in the distance. Someone with a messy shock of grey hair, wearing an animal-shaped mask.
Sometimes Mizuki thought the strange figure was looking right at her, but when she stared back at them, they turned away and leapt off of the roof to go elsewhere.
She pointed it out to her sister once, only for Noriko to cry and wail to their father about a creepy masked hooligan following them. Mizuki had to calm her down and explain to a very worried father that, no, they weren't being followed by anyone, they just saw someone with an animal mask on a roof while they were out on a walk. Her father had explained with a small smile that the masked figure was likely ANBU, someone who worked directly for the Hokage and fought hard to protect the people of Konoha. Noriko was a lot less scared of the people on the rooftops after that, pointing them out excitedly whenever she saw another one.
"Look, nee-chan! Look, they protect us!" Noriko pulled on her sister's hand to get her attention. "Can we go say thank you?"
Mizuki smiled down at her. "No, Noriko. They work hard, so let's not bother them."
The little brunette girl always pouted, but accepted either way.
The rest of the year passed in quiet peace, Suzume growing old enough to babble half-understood sentences and Noriko never growing out of her childish desire to be the center of attention at all times. Kaoru had come back from her trip with their mother a few months after they'd first departed, and though she hugged Mizuki when she entered the Clan house again for the first time in months, she was quickly whisked away for more lessons or training.
Mizuki tried, once, to ask Kaoru if she wanted to be Clan Heir, but the younger girl simply looked at her elder sister like she was stupid.
"Does it matter?" She asked simply. Mizuki's heart ached, wondering if her desire to be free of Clan politics had caused her sister to be chained down in her stead. That was the last thing she wanted.
Before she could explain that, yes, what you want matters, Kaoru was pulled away for something or another. She left with a smile and a quick hug to her elder sister, which Mizuki held tightly to until Kaoru complained that she was squeezing her too hard.
When Mizuki turned twelve, she sat down with her father and mother in order to discuss marriage.
"You're not the Clan Heir," her mother said with a sense of detached anger - like a fury that had cooled off years ago but never quite disappeared - "But you're still the oldest of my daughters. Marrying you to another prominent Clan would be beneficial."
Although Mizuki blushed furiously at the idea of marrying a boy, she sat straight in her cushion with a stern expression on her face. This was a serious matter, something she couldn't get out of by acting childish and silly.
"Of course," her father joined in on the discussion, "We would never marry you off to someone you didn't want to be with. You'll have years to get to know each other before you're both old enough to marry, after all."
Mizuki frowned. She knew her father was attempting a placating tone, trying to juggle giving her what she wanted and doing what he knew was necessary for the Clan.
"I don't want an arranged marriage at all," she spoke in a cool, reserved tone. She would approach this the best that she could, but she would not step down from it.
Her parents look like they expected as much from her, her father frowning sadly and her mother sighing angrily. Mizuki knew her sisters, all three of them, were sitting just outside of the room, ears pressed to the thin walls in order to listen in on the conversation. She wanted to show them - wanted to prove to Kaoru, of them all - that what they wanted in life mattered. They didn't have to give ground and do things they didn't want just because they were born into a Clan. That was on their parents, not on them.
"Mizuki," her father began with a warning tone. He rarely called her by her full name, typically referring to her by the affectionate nickname he'd given her long ago - Mizu.
"That is not a choice you have," her mother finished. Her long silver hair was brushed back neatly, going down all the way to her hips, and her purple eyes were narrowed in anger. "You need to marry. You're the eldest-"
"I don't need to do anything!" Mizuki countered quickly, interrupting her mother. She heard a stifled gasp behind the walls from one of her sisters, she knew her parents heard it too, but all three of them ignored it. "It was your choice to have kids, not my choice to be born! I'm not required to follow your rules! I wanna marry someone I love, not someone that would be 'beneficial to the Clan'!"
Her mother clenched her hands on her thighs, but her father pleaded with Mizuki in a gentle voice.
"People in arranged marriages learn to love each other, Mizu. I'm sure you and your husband would fall in love over time. Like I said, you'll have years to get to know each other before you're of age. Your mother and I-"
"Were not an arranged marriage!" She interrupted again. She knew this was a rude thing to do repeatedly, knew it would agitate her mother. But the more indignant Mizuki got, upset at their desire to control this aspect of her life, the less she cared about upsetting her mother.
In fact, if she thought a little deeper about it, maybe some childish part of her mind felt satisfaction at making her angry.
She continued, gaining confidence at her parents' stunned quiet. "You chose to marry Otou-san even though he wasn't a member of the Clan! Because you loved him, right?" Her mother pursed her lips. "Right?"
"That's not the same thing, Mizuki."
"Yes it is!" She stands up now, hands clenched. She was stubborn as all hell, and she refused to back down from her point. "It's exactly the same! You were Clan Heir back then, weren't you? When you and Otou-san met? Were you not in an arranged marriage yourself, Okaa-san?"
Her mother looked away. Her father sighed. Surprisingly enough, it was her father who spoke up next.
"Mizuki, this isn't one of those times where you'll get out of this by arguing. What your mother did as Clan Heir isn't important to you right now. You're not even the Clan Heir anymore, you haven't been for years! You need to marry-"
"When I wanna marry, I will! Not any sooner than that!"
Her mother finally, finally, exploded in a burst of anger. She slammed her hand down onto the wooden table between them, leaning forward in her seat with angry eyes. Everyone went silent with the violent outburst, even her father looking shocked.
Her mother spoke coldly, in a low tone.
"If you don't accept an arranged marriage," she stood up from her seat, looking down her nose at her eldest daughter. "...I'll disown you."
There was crying heard just outside the room, and if Mizuki paid enough attention to it she might have realized it was little Suzume, crying from the loud noise that had scared her. Mizuki stared at her mother in quiet disbelief instead, her mind a jumbled mess from emotions. Disown? Her mother would disown her over something like this? Something so small and unimportant? Was it that big of a deal to her to control her daughter's life?
"Fumiko!" Her father hissed, his own eyes wide in surprise. "We would never do such a thing!"
Her mother glared down at him now, angry at anyone who didn't side with her it seemed. "She embarrassed us all by refusing her right as Clan Heir! Do you have any idea the kinds of things said about the Ueno Clan when Kaoru and I went on that trip?"
Her father stood up, taller than her mother and hands nervously waving around as he spoke. "We would never disown our daughter! How could you say something so terrible?!"
Mizuki realized, belatedly, that there were tears leaking from her eyes. She didn't make a sound, didn't sniffle even when she felt like there might be snot dripping from her nose. She looked back and forth between her parents as they argued heatedly with each other. Her mother was very firm in her threat - not only had Mizuki 'embarrassed' the Clan by refusing to do her duties as Heir, but she also refused to strengthen the Clan bonds by marrying into another. Her father refuted that no matter what she did, no matter how she decided to live her life, he would never disown her.
Her mother turned away from her father, looking down at her again with narrowed eyes.
"You will marry!"
Mizuki finally let out a sob, and anger burbled in her chest. Something ached so, so bad in her heart, and she wasn't sure which part hurt worse - the idea that her mother cared more about the Clan than she cared about her daughter, or the idea that, if Mizuki didn't do as she was told, her mother could cut ties with her so easily. Like she didn't matter to her at all.
"DISOWN ME, THEN!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, stomping one foot on the tatami mats angrily. "I don't care! I HATE this stupid family anyway! I don't wanna be in it anymore!"
It was a lie, a big, bold-faced lie right to her mother's surprised face. She loved her family so, so much. It was obvious from the way she hurt from her mother's threat - the idea alone of being seperated from them made her rage, made her want to fight to stay. Her sisters were the light of her life, her father the best role model she could have ever asked for. Even when Mizuki was angry at her mother for all the chores she sidled her with, even when they argued over what was most important in the world - the Clan or personal freedom - she still loved her mother. Still looked up to her as a strong woman with a large weight on her shoulders, someone who took it in stride and had given birth to four beautiful girls in the midst of all her duties as a young Clan Head.
But she was furious. She was angry beyond measure, and everything in her heart told her to hurt them somehow. Make them feel the same ache in their chests that she was being forced to feel.
Her mother was crying now, too, but still looked angry.
"Don't you dare say something like that!"
Mizuki sobbed openly, and she saw the sliding screen door open slowly, three tearful, scared little girls peering through hesitantly. "Well, it's TRUE! I hate you all!"
With those words out of her mouth, flying out too fast for her to take them back and pretend she never uttered them at all, she turned on her heel and ran off as fast as she could. It was hard to breathe from how hard she was trying to suppress the sobs that wanted to climb out of her throat, and her heart ached more and more with every step she took away from her family. She ran out of the door to the room, right past her crying sisters who looked torn between being terrified and being hurt by her words. Then she ran through the halls until she reached the main door, and she tore it open and ran out without caring about putting her sandals on. It was a cold night, the ground was slightly wet from the earlier rain, and her toes squished in the mud in an unpleasant way. Still, Mizuki ran as fast as she could.
She didn't know where she was going, wasn't thinking too hard about it. She just wanted to get away.
Eventually, she sat down under the shade of a giant wisteria tree, getting mud and rain water all over her clothes. Miserably, she realized her butt was getting wet from the ground, but she didn't stand up again. She looked up at the tree above her and realized, mutely, that this was the place she first met Obito.
Finally, she let herself cry openly. She wailed into the night air, wiping away her tears only for more to immediately take its place. There was definitely snot now, and she messily wiped it away with the sleeve of her shirt. She was sure she looked ugly right now, her face felt hot from anger and tears, but she couldn't find it in her to care at the moment.
It was in this state - covered in mud and gunk and crying in an ugly, 'unbecoming of a lady' kind of way - that her two youngest sisters raced out to find her in.
"Nee-chan?" Noriko called out from a few feet away, her voice wobbly from her own crying. Suzume was clutching Noriko's hands, crying loudly from everything she'd seen and heard yet couldn't understand due to her young age and uninvolvement in all the Clan issues. They both had their sandals on, and Suzume had a jacket a few sizes too big for her tossed over her shoulders. Probably, it had belonged to Noriko when the girl realized her little sister couldn't go out in the cold with just her night clothes on.
Mizuki looked up at them with wide, teary eyes. Her vision was blurry from all the crying, and she hiccupped a few times.
"Did you mean it?" Noriko asked her, stumbling over her words and looking like she'd collapse at any second.
Mizuki knew immediately what she was referring to. She cried again, sniffling loudly. "No!" She wailed, holding out her arms. Noriko and Suzume fell down into her grasp immediately, eager for comfort. "No, I love you! I'm so-" she hiccupped, "I'm so sorry I said that! I didn't mean it, I promise!"
Suzume clutched onto her elder sister's shirt and cried heavily. Mizuki doubted the young girl knew what was going on, why everyone was shouting and crying and running away, but she cried anyway.
"I love you too, nee-chan!" Noriko bawled loudly, trying desperately to fit into her sister's lap despite not being the little girl she was years ago when she used to climb on her for comfort. Mizuki allowed it anyway, even when Noriko's knee was hurting her thigh, and she held both sisters close to herself.
Maybe, if she weren't so emotional and unable to think clearly, she would have wondered why Kaoru hadn't come out with them.
Inside the Clan House, her mother sat on the ground with her face in her hands, weeping. Her father had one hand on her back in an attempt to comfort his wife, his other hand holding onto Kaoru's. The young girl sniffled, trying to hold back the tears in her eyes, and she hugged her mother as best as she could - hugged her tight, just like Mizuki had always done whenever Kaoru was upset about something, squeezing her until Kaoru complained about the hug being too tight.
"It's okay, okaa-san," Kaoru whispered in a thick voice, something emotional caught in her throat in a painful way. "I still love you."
Things were tense for months.
For the first week and a half after the argument, Mizuki didn't see hide nor hair of her mother or of Kaoru. Both seemed to always be busy with something beyond the Clan compound whenever Mizuki was home, or busy with something inside when she was out and about in the village. A part of her wanted to be angry, to find her mother and tell her that she was being the childish one here and avoiding her issues…
But the bigger part of her was glad for it, honestly. She didn't know if she could handle a confrontation so soon after the main argument had happened.
She cried herself to sleep for a few days after it happened, and her father would sometimes hear her sniffling under her comforter and come in to hold her for a while. He promised her that he would never let something like that happen, and even told her that her mother hadn't meant it at all. She refused to listen when he tried to defend his wife, standing firm in the idea that, if she were truly sorry about her words, she'd come home and apologize for them.
Most nights, her sisters would come into her room to sleep with her. Sometimes they brought their own futons, sometimes they didn't, but they always ended up cuddling close enough to hold onto her at some point in the night. They wanted - needed - comfort, and Mizuki was glad enough for their affection to distract her from the pain of her mother's words.
After two weeks of them sneaking into her room at night, they were finally told to go back to sleeping in their own rooms. Suzume had cried about it, calling out to her eldest sister with grabby hands, but she'd eventually been soothed enough to go back to her own room. Noriko simply accepted the order with a frown and a nod.
Mizuki first talked to her mother again three weeks after the original argument. She'd knocked on her door, asked her for permission to take Suzume a little further beyond the Clan compound than she usually did. Her mother had replied in a cool, even tone that she was fine with it as long as she stayed within earshot of the guards so she could call out to them if something happened. Mizuki had paused in the doorway. She'd gotten the answer to her question, sure, but something felt… incomplete. She wanted to say something more.
"Is there anything else?" Her mother asked without looking up from the papers laid in front of her.
"No, okaa-san," Mizuki demurred politely, shutting the door and leaving without another word. Just inside the room, shortly after the young girl left, her mother would pause in her writing and put her head in her hands. She would wonder how it all fell apart so quickly, and she would wonder if it was too late to fix things.
Mizuki held Suzume's hand in her own as they walked slowly. The young girl was two years and six months of age now, and while she was getting better and better at walking without wobbling or tripping over her own feet, she demanded to hold onto something as they went on their trip together anyway.
Noriko was on her other side, talking animatedly about something or another. Sometimes she skipped as they went, smiling and pointing to various colorful posters they passed as they moved through a few pop-up stalls just down the street from their Clan Compound. Sometimes she stopped to prod at something she saw on the ground, and the other two girls had to stop and wait for her to catch up again. "Sorry!" She'd say with a smile and a laugh, "It was just a rock!"
They eventually reached a stall that sold little candies. They had a wide range of them - hard sours, chewy fruit flavored candies, suckers - and Mizuki had planned on using her own money that she'd saved up from allowances to buy something for her sisters. Noriko had a bit of her own money, but she was terrible at saving and typically bought something the moment she got her allowance in. Suzume was too young to start earning money - she'd begin getting hers when she turned three in a few months.
"Up, nee-chan," Suzume held her arms up wide for Mizuki to grab. With a smile, she picked up her little sister and rested her on her hip, high up enough for her to look over the stall and see the selection of treats the man running it was selling.
"Well, what a trio of sweeties!" He laughed at his own joke. Mizuki didn't find it that funny and Suzume was too busy staring at the colorful candies to care about it, but Noriko apparently found it hilarious. She laughed long and loud, and inched closer to the stall to rest her chin on the wood.
"You're funny, ojii-chan!" She grinned brightly, referring to the man with an affectionate title of old man. Mizuki wondered, with a hidden grin, if Noriko had actually found it funny or if she was just trying to get something half-off by being all cutesy.
The six year old brunette may have had the attention span of a butterfly floating along the wind, but she had her puppy eyes down perfectly and knew just when to use them.
"Why, thank you! My wife doesn't like my jokes all that much," he winked with a grin good-naturedly, and Mizuki finally cracked a smile at him. Okay, maybe, just maybe he was a little bit funny. Noriko laughed again, then tugged on Mizuki's shirt sleeve.
"Nee-chan, can I get this one?" She pointed to a bucket containing what looked like colorful, sour candy drops. Mizuki nodded without hesitation, and Noriko grinned and bounced up and down on her heels. "Hurry up and choose, Suzume!"
"Don't rush her," Mizuki scolded gently. Suzume leaned over and plucked a red sucker off the wooden stall, holding it up right in front of her elder sister's face.
"This one! It's red!" Mizuki smiled. Red was, apparently, Suzume's newest favorite color. She went through them quickly, choosing new favorites every month or so and wanting to redecorate her room to match it.
Mizuki plucked the sucker from her sister's hand so she wouldn't start eating it before it was paid for, and the man behind the stall hummed a little tune as he put a handful of candy drops into a small plastic bag. He smiled at her as she handed over the appropriate amount of money.
"Nothing for you, young lady?" He asked curiously.
"No thank you," she answered politely, taking the sucker and sour drops in one hand and turning to walk off with her sisters. "Have a nice day!"
He watched them go with a genial wave.
They walked for a few more minutes, looking for somewhere to sit. Noriko wanted to eat her candy as they walked, but Mizuki was adamant that it would taste better if they could sit together somewhere pretty. Suzume said nothing, but her wisteria purple eyes never left the sucker in her sister's hands as they moved from place to place. Finally, after wandering around for another few quiet moments, she found a nice wooden bench to sit in with her sisters. Noriko plopped down and looked at her elder sister eagerly, only pulling back when she finally got her hands on the bag of candies.
"Don't eat them all at once, you'll hurt your tummy," Mizuki warned lightly as she put Suzume down with care. The youngest girl made grabby hands, and Mizuki handed over the sucker without much prompting.
Noriko offered some vague words of understanding as she began chewing on her sour drops, but Mizuki was immediately distracted with something that caught her eye.
Up, high up on the rooftops above where they were sitting, there was a familiar figure in an animal themed mask. They were turned away from the girls, so Mizuki couldn't quite see their front, but she saw an odd design of swirls in red ink on the person's left shoulder. She thought it looked rather pretty. They were crouched on the roof, looking at something in the distance that Mizuki couldn't see. She remembered, vaguely, her father having once told her that Shinobi always knew when they were being watched. As soon as the thought flitted through her mind, the figure turned around to stare right at her.
She looked right into the eye holes of the mask, into one dark eye. The other eye was shut tightly. She wondered if they were half-blind, and then thought about how hard it must be to be a half-blind Shinobi.
She offered a small wave to them, and they leaned back a bit as if in surprise.
Then, finally, it clicked. Wild, spiky grey hair - dark eyes - fair skin - the same dark blue shirt that crept up underneath the animal mask the person wore. Likely covering the lower half of the face.
She looked up with wide brown eyes. Was this…?
"Kakashi?" She called, hesitantly. She didn't understand that ANBU identities were a secret - she didn't know that only the Hokage was supposed to know who was or was not in the ANBU ranks. The only thought on her mind at the time was thank Kami he's okay.
It'd been so, so long since she saw him last. She had so many things to say to him, to ask him. She wanted to know why she never saw Obito or Rin again, she wanted to ask why he never came over for dango - oh, right, she mentally slapped her own forehead, he doesn't even like it! She wanted to ask him how he was doing, like he'd asked her all that time ago on the concrete bench. It seemed as if it's been forever since they spoke last, and she wanted to tell him about the things she's been dealing with. She wanted to… She wanted…
She just wanted to talk to him, to be near him. She missed him.
But the moment his name left her lips, his one black eye widened in surprise and he disappeared in a flicker, just like he'd done when she last saw him across the street from her oh so long ago.
Noriko stood from her seat and looked up at where her sister had been staring at.
"Kakashi?" She spoke curiously. "What's a Kakashi? Did you see something, nee-chan?"
Mizuki stared at the empty space quietly, feeling oddly as if she had just been rejected for some reason. "No," she answered after a moment. "There's nothing there." Noriko still felt like something had spooked her elder sister, but nodded quietly and offered a sour drop to her sister as a means of comfort. Mizuki smiled.
The three girls spent an hour just sitting on that wooden bench, talking to each other and eating their respective candies. When Suzume kicked her feet and began getting fussy, unhappy and restless with too much energy thanks to the sugar she'd just had, they finally walked back home. Mizuki sat on the back porch as she supervised her sisters playing together, working off the sugar together until they were tired. Her father scolded her lightly for letting them have something sugary so soon before dinner time, but he'd let it go with a quick glance to Noriko's expertly done puppy eyes.
The next day, Mizuki went alone to the same bench. She didn't quite know why - some part of her knew that, logically, he wouldn't be in the same place again. She knew he wouldn't just be there, waiting for her like she hoped he was.
As expected, he was nowhere to be found. She tried again the next day, with the same results. She let it go for a week, then tried again, only to find an elderly couple taking up the bench. No young boys with red swirls on their shoulders stood on the roof behind them.
After that, she just about forgot about it all. Well, no, that's not accurate. She stopped trying, stopped going back to look for him in all the spots they'd met with each other before, but she never forgot. Inexplicably, she found that she still thought about him quite often. She wanted to know why one of his eyes was shut. Was he injured? Was he okay? Did he need help? Did he need a friend?
Whenever Mizuki got hurt, a scrape from playing too rough with some Ueno boys or a papercut from bringing reports to her father on slow days, she always wanted someone to be there for her. She liked when someone was there to smile at her and tell her it was just a small cut and she had nothing to worry about. Even if she knew it already, it was just… nice. To have someone be there for you when you were hurting. She wanted to be there for Kakashi. She wondered if he had anyone else in his life for him. Did he have family? Did he have friends?
She wondered why she never saw Obito and Rin again.
A few more months went by in relative silence. Kaoru grew distant from her older sister, and though it hurt Mizuki to think her torn relationship with her mother was ruining her relationship with her sister as well, she never sought out Kaoru to try to fix it. Her father had once told her that Kaoru needed time and space to figure out what she wanted to do, so Mizuki resolved to keep her distance and let her sister come to her when she was ready.
Her mother made a few attempts at smoothing things over, offering to walk with Mizuki down to the river to feed the fish or to paint with her again like they had when she was a little girl. Every time Mizuki considered the requests, that little burble of anger in her chest grew hot all over again. She refused every attempt, sometimes in silence. Sometimes, regrettably, with scathing words.
"Why not take Kaoru with you? She's your favorite daughter, right?"
She stayed up late on those nights, when her mother would flinch like she'd been physically hurt and walk away without another word. She laid in her futon and, sometimes, cried all over again. She was opening her own wounds time and time again and she didn't know how to stop it.
She was never disowned, even a full year after the argument had taken place. Even after Mizuki had turned thirteen years old. She kept living in the Clan Compound, kept sleeping in her own room on her own futon, kept being referred to as Mizuki Ueno-sama. Every day she played with her two youngest sisters, and in the evenings she helped her father cook lunch. He even paid attention to her interest in sweets, buying more baking supplies for her to test out different styles and different recipes.
Two months after she turned thirteen, a tragedy struck.
Kyuubi, they called it as they ran around in a blind panic. A monster. A beast bigger than any building in Konoha, with nine tails and fur that looked blood-red under the moonlight. It was under that same moonlight when she first laid her eyes on it, as her father gripped her hand tightly and carried a sobbing Suzume in his arms. Noriko was holding onto Mizuki's hand behind her, and Kaoru held onto Noriko's. They formed a chain link, holding tight to each other as they ran. She could hear Noriko's sobs and Kaoru's quiet, panicked breaths as they moved, following behind their father.
Mizuki was just… stunned to silence. She stared at the raging beast with wide brown eyes. It reared its giant, ugly head into the sky and opened its mouth wide, showing off all the rows of sharp teeth that looked longer than Mizuki was tall.
She let go of her father and sister's hands as the beast roared loud and angrily into the night air. It was so loud that she felt the ground shake beneath her. Even underneath the hands clamped tightly to her ears, tears pricked her eyes as the sound reverberated through her ribcage.
"Mizuki!" She heard someone scream her name. Her sister, maybe - or her father. She couldn't tell which. Everything felt muddled and blurry, all the sounds surrounding her becoming muted and barely recognizable.
She looked up with tearful brown eyes to see her father reaching toward her with wide eyes. Her sisters were all by his side, crying and scared. She wanted to call out to them, tell them that it was okay, that she would never let harm come to any of them.
Something flew towards her. For a split second, she felt searing pain on her forehead, hot and wet with something warm.
When that split second was over, her world turned dark.
