A few months passed since the infamous deer incident.

Hikari was utterly and completely bored. No one mentioned how boring being a baby would be. Everyone always went on about the wonders of childhood, Hikari didn't see it.

The novelty of her situation has faded, she still felt immeasurable joy when her family showed her affection but that was far and in between, the rest of the time, it was just her, her blanket, and her deer plushy.

Too bad her mother didn't allow her near the deer after her birthday situation.

She squirmed in her crib, rotating her arms without a goal in mind. Sighing, she rolled on her stomach.

She grumbled, face in the pillow, cursing the neighbors that are occupying her mother's time.

Even Shikamaru had something to do now and he didn't even want to do anything.

A few weeks ago, her father had told Shikamaru that he was going to start training him in shadow techniques that were passed down in their family, apparently. Abilities that she had, too.

Of course, she wasn't allowed in the training room, her mother had yelled for 15 minutes straight before her father confessed that he didn't even plan on putting her in the room.

She turned her head to the side and stared at her tiny hands.

She had seen Shikamaru training in the backyard once, he was doing some kind of hand movements and she swore she had seen his shadow move around him like water that had been spilled on the ground.

It was fascinating.

She scrunched her face slightly. Could she do that?

Her tiny hand seemed too vulnerable and soft (Harry's hands were rough and calloused from hard work through his childhood and then because of curses and battling in his school years).

But then, so was Shikamaru's hands.

'Would her father even teach her when she grows?' She pouted.

It was no secret that things were a bit tense since her birthday, the Nara Counsel came over almost every day to discuss something with her father in his office. She couldn't hear them, unfortunately, but she guessed it had something to do with the deer being the deciding factor for leadership in the clan.

Both she and Shikamaru had been accepted, but she had a stronger relationship with them (because of her magic and its connection to nature but they wouldn't know that) and apparently that meant something to the Counsel.

That was also a part of the reason that her father decided to train Shikamaru. At least it made sense to her.

That's also why Hikari felt that her father was going to completely ignore any training that should be offered to her, either he wouldn't train her or he would assign someone else to train her so that only Shikamaru would be the successor trained by the Head of the Clan.

She hoped it would be the latter.

Even if he didn't want to teach her, she hoped that he would at least care enough to get someone to train her.

She sniffed, hand reaching to wipe her falling tears and then shook her head. Curse her baby body.

She rolled around to stare at the animal figures dangling over her crib.

The shadows that she couldn't see were humming under her crib, she could feel them if she closed her eyes, no doubt the cause of that being her magic reacting to her wild emotions.

She paused.

Wait

If she could feel the shadows, doesn't that mean that she could, theoretically, control them? Her magic listened to her so far but she knew Shikamaru had no magic, he had something else.

Chakra.

Only manipulated through hand movements, called seals or something.

But it was just energy, wasn't it? Just like the magic that was used by a wand, you could manipulate it wandlessly eventually.

Sitting up, she lifted her arm and reached through the wooden bars of her crib, focusing.

She could feel them dancing, moving about, touching her and running like they were in a game of tag. She breathed, letting the feeling overwhelm her senses.

After what seemed like eternity, they calmed down and she opened her eyes.

There were shadow figures encircling her crib. They were frozen, watching her, like they were waiting for something.

She fluttered her eyes, trying to think about something to do before green met the black buttons of the doll on the other side of the room.

She focused on the feeling of want. She wanted the toy here. No, she needed the toy here.

The doll started to float and she stopped. No no, that wasn't it.

Sweat dripped into her eyes, Hikari breathed hard and reached within her, as usual she felt the golden miasma that was her magic, there was two other colors though. One pure black, and the other a beautiful shade of indigo.

The black felt too dark for her to touch, there was a warning to it, like touching it would have consequences that she couldn't handle, so she played it safe and dived into the indigo, bathing in it, breathing it, letting it flow through her but restraining it when it went too far.

She heard something move. She opened her eyes, ones that she didn't know had closed, and stared at the shadow figures that were now connected to her own shadow. One of them took a step back and slowly glided towards her doll.

As soon as it was close enough, it reached a hand towards the doll and then the doll disappeared.

Hikari almost choked but didn't disconnect.

The shadow-y figure slid back towards her and reached its arm above her crib like it was going to attack her.

Hikari closed her eyes and prepared to pull the energy back, it was okay to fail this time but she needed to do this quickly before it gained a conscious mind of its own, her magic was volatile at bes-

A doll fell on her face.

She took a moment to gather her surroundings before she realized that the doll fell from inside the opaque arm above her.

Hikari beamed. Maybe life didn't have to be boring after all.

Clack

She wipped her head to the clatter near the door.

Her bottle of milk slowly rolled on the wooden floor, leaking a few drops.

Hikari shivered in horror, eyes going to the person who had been holding the bottle.

Shikamaru stood at the door frame, eyes wide and shaking.

Oh.

Oh shit.


Shikamaru didn't tell on her.

But he did threaten to tell their parents if she ever did that while he wasn't around.

Catching your sister smiling at Eldritch beings scared people, apparently.

He also made her promise to teach him that, if she could. She swore that she would find a way, her brother needed every chance to survive in this hellish world.

(She did, too.)


Hikari, having more of Harry in her than she would like to think, didn't take well to the threats and decided to continue to practice anyways.

Over the next few weeks, she figured out that the shadows acted like a gate to another dimension.

'It was like having a limitless Mokeskin pouch' Hikari thought in awe.

But the thing that really excited her, was the fact that she could make them spy on people.

She could hear whatever was spoken around them if she wanted. And wasn't that the chance that she had been waiting for ever since she was born?

'She will figure this place out and then she is going to change it from the inside.'

There was something horribly wrong with the Shinobi world and she was going to fix it all.

She wasn't going to let her brother be used as a killing machine by a bunch of well-meaning manipulative adults. Not anymore. She had enough of old people deciding everything about her life, and she wasn't going to let Shikamaru go through the same thing.

Her brother was going to start going to the academy in two years. An academy to teach children how to kill, basically, if what she had understood was right.

Therefore, she had limited time and even more limited resources, especially because of her tiny stature. That's why having her own personal minions that could be her muscles while she was in this position was life-saving.

Hikari didn't know where the common sense of these Shinobi people went, but she was going to beat it into their heads when she got the chance.

She almost understood why her mother was desperately trying to keep the innocence of her youngest daughter. She just wanted a family, not killers.

Hikari felt like her mother was going to be sorely disappointed.

She only hoped it would be a long time from now.

(it wouldn't.)


Thank you everyone who commented! It motivated me to continue 3.