Hikari took a deep breath and exhaled through her mouth, her body fixing itself in a relaxed stand while her hands flashed through the seals guided by Suzaku-sensei.
Said teacher lifted an eyebrow at her. "You seem used to the seals' combination. Did you practice alone?"
Hikari blushed and lifted her mouth in an embarrassed smile, "Nii-san showed me."
Sensei's face softened and patted her head. Hikari grinned and mindfully counted her blessings. Shikamaru hadn't shown her that much, he didn't have the patience to do so without falling asleep, but it wouldn't do to have them know who her teachers actually were.
Suzaku-sensei was a tall man with a rough face and hair gelled up to form two horns on his head. Most children would find him intimidating, but she knew him as kind and thoughtful and had told him as such on their second meeting. Training sessions were honestly fun, it was nice to have someone spend time with her and make small talk while she practiced. Her mentors weren't ones for easy talk like this, so it was appreciated.
If only he actually taught her something she didn't know.
"That's great, Ri-chan. Just be sure not to overdo it. Now show me how far you've gotten with the leaf exercise." He said and motioned for her to sit in front of him.
Hikari resisted the urge to sigh. She had been spinning leaves on her body ever since they started training. She knew it was important to learn control especially for someone with large reserves, but the repetition was killing her.
Suzaku-sensei handed her six leaves. Ritually, she stuck one on her forehead, two on her cheeks, one on her neck and one on each arm. She closed her eyes and swirled the energy directly underneath the leaves, pulling them across her skin in circular motions. The whole process took less than a minute to start.
"Good job. I believe we're ready for the next step." She opened her eyes to see Suzaku-san smiling at her, and beamed at him. Finally!
Suzaku-san got up and dusted his pants. He walked to the side of the room and then proceeded to vertically walk on the wall.
Huh.
Tree climbing was something Hikari had skipped with her mentors, opting to use the water walking method instead, since her accidental magic always took form when she was about to fall and stuck her to the trees without any chakra used (well, except that time when she bounced off the ground), puddles of water didn't form the same threat however. Tobirama-sensei almost had an aneurysm right then and there. Fortunately for her, ghosts couldn't get diseases.
Hikari was stumped. She couldn't do this without letting her magic react. As much as she hated it, her magic was very much uncontrollable in this state and anything that will trigger her emotions will summon it immediately.
Her worry must have shown on her face as her sensei stepped down to the training room's wooden floor and smiled at her, "You have enough control to manage it, Ri-chan. You just have to channel enough chakra in your soles to stick to the wall. Too little, you'll fall. Too much, you'll be stuck. It is the same as leaf sticking, just imagine yourself as the leaf instead."
He demonstrated by placing his palm on a chair and lifted the chair as though his hand had been glued to it.
Hikari blinked. She knew for a fact that overpowering anything with too much chakra caused it to explode or light up on fire, he probably didn't want her to think that her feet were going to explode, though.
"Sensei?" She frowned and went to stand next to him in front of the chair. There was something her mentor always complained about that she wanted to try. "Can you show me your hands when you do that?"
His eyebrow lifted minutely as he nodded. He spread his arm and Hikari could feel and almost taste the chakra swirling beneath his palms. His chakra felt almost the same as hers; dark and slow like tar, except hers was much more volatile and evenly spread. Her chakra was also constantly moving through her body along with her magic, not at all like the calm lakes found in other people, where it would only ripple and take form when doing a jutsu.
Her magic flowed through her blood and her chakra which was much lower in quantity was always hitching a ride. She frowned, feeling that her teacher's chakra was actually concentrated in specific pathways across his body while his hands were like an oven from the amount of chakra flowing through every pore. It was exactly how Tobirama-sensei described the chakra pathways to be.
Hikari hummed, memorizing the look to ask her teacher about it later. "Can you show me what you do when you stick a leaf and move it on your hand, Sensei?"
His chakra paused and there was a minute where his chakra slumped back like water being dropped and then a trickle lifted to the surface of the skin almost out of his body and seemed to search for something to pull and then swirled around like a little concentrated cyclone.
"Okay, I got it." Hikari nodded, moving towards the chair.
She lifted her hand and adjusted the chakra level to roughly the same as she had seen in her teacher's hands. She lowered her hand and brought it up again, lifting the chair with it.
The chair was too heavy for her small arm, though, so it had to be dropped quickly.
She turned to Suzaku-sensei to see his reaction and saw both of his eyebrows reaching his scalp and his mouth twisted in disbelief. "What did you do?"
"What?" Hikari responded, confused.
Suzaku-sensei shook his head and gestured to his hand with his chin. "What did you see in my hand?"
She scrunched her nose, "I just felt how much chakra was needed to lift something bigger. The ratio is about a fingers worth of chakra divided on the surface needed to pick ten kilograms. It should take about two fingers of chakra divided on each foot for me to stand on the wall. But I have to factor gravity and the force needed to oppose it. The amount of chakra differs from one person to another, though. So, that isn't accurate to anyone but me, really."
She brushed her neck and grimaced, that sounded like gibberish.
Sensei's mouth opened, then closed again with a clack, he blinked twice forcefully as if to clear his vision, "You felt the chakra? You didn't touch my hand."
It was Hikari's turn to blink at him, "Well, yeah."
Everyone learned to feel chakra at some point, didn't they? Tobirama-sensei, when he was in a particularly bad mood, used to complain about teaching her to feel her chakra without even being able to show her because he was dead. It was something all her dead teachers complained about. Heck, even Uncle Ino could tell the exact amount of chakra she had when he was casually talking to her and then told her father.
The last sentence did a roller-coaster in her mind.
And then told her father.
'Told -'
Her father couldn't feel it himself.
Shit.
But why? Her heart pounded in her chest, as her mind went into overdrive. She was certain it was something to be taught. Why would her father not know it? He was a jounin, shouldn't jounin already be able to feel chakra to some level?
"You're a sensor type." Suzaku-sensei confirmed and smiled at her pale face. "That will change our training plan, I have to talk to your father about this. We'll end the training here for today."
Double shit.
(She tried to tell herself it wasn't her fault.)
(She failed.)
Hikari swung her dangling legs back and forth while watching her mother fret about from on top of the bed. A suitcase was slowly being filled out on the bed, while her mother added one thing after another like a honey bee collecting nectar. Hikari didn't understand why the suitcase was being used when it was all going to go into a scroll for easier travel, not that she would comment on it.
She had come back from the sleepover at Ino's – not Choji's, no matter what evil plans Shikamaru tried to pull, her parents trusted Ino's mother who was a stay-at-home wife to take care of them better than Choji's who had work everyday – to a changed house.
Everything was squeaky clean; her mother had apparently been too ecstatic and decided to burn off steam by cleaning the whole house. Twice.
Hikari wasn't one to gloat, but her mother's improved mood was all because of her and she didn't forget to give her father a smirk when her mother wasn't looking.
The dynamics between their family were much better already. Her father still treated her like she had a disease, but her mother had started to pay a little more attention to Shikamaru, she also by extension paid a little less attention to her, which made Hikari breath a sigh of relief at finally being able to move without scrutiny at her every move – at least from her mother.
Her father had taken the extra time to invite her into his office to give her looks. Hikari had no idea what he wanted, but if he didn't start speaking soon instead of just asking her to play Shogi with him and then staring at her for hours without making any moves, she was going to start ignoring his calls completely. At least, she tried to get along with him.
"Ri-chan." Her mother's serious voice cleared her head.
The older woman kneeled beside the bed until she was on eye level with her daughter. Hikari swallowed. "Yes, mama?"
"Do you want to come with me to visit your grandparents?" Yoshino's eyes stared into her soul. "We can change the mission and inform the team that one more person will be added."
Hikari already expected the question to be brought up at some point and replied with the answer prepared, "No, Mama, I can't!"
Her mother frowned, "Don't you want to see your grandparents? You look just like your granny, everyone would love you."
"No, Mama. I wanna see them but Naru's birthday is soon and everyone is extra mean to him on his birthday so I can't leave him alone." She shook her head in stubbornness. "We can go together and take Nii-san with us next year."
It was a lie, of course. No one dared to be rude to Naruto after she threatened them a few times. The Nara clan should think she was cute and cuddly for strategic reasons, but the rest of the village was free real estate. Especially, if they decided it was alright to be cruel to an orphaned child who had no control over his state.
Besides, who would believe that a little five-year-old baby who liked to sew and knit would have threatened to castrate someone? Hikari made sure there were no viable witnesses, after all.
The bit about travelling the following year was only a precaution. She didn't want her mother getting ideas about running away, no matter what the visions showed, she wouldn't be stupid enough to give her mother perfect chances to escape with her 'normal' daughter and never come back home. It was good to plant the thought that she could go visit anytime instead of leaving them forever.
It was starting to work, as her mother seemed constrained after her reply. "You can come with me this year and next year we can all go together. Naruto will be fine with Shikamaru and Choji."
Hikari ignored the first part and shook her head like a selectively-hearing spoiled child, "No! Shikamaru is too lazy and Naru is my best friend. I have to protect him!"
Her mother sighed. Hikari didn't like being a difficult child – she didn't want to be a Dudley – but this was a part of her plan and it had to be done.
She was pulled into a warm hug. Hikari immediately wrapped her short arms around her mother's middle. "You are a carbon-copy of my mother, you know? You're even as stubborn as she is. She would have loved to show you her gardens. She's always been so proud of them and we used to talk about how my children would play in them after I get married."
Hikari smiled sadly. She wanted to meet them, too. "We'll go next year together, Mama. Promise."
She felt her mother nod in her hair and tighten her arms around Hikari's small body.
Hikari would make sure her father let her mother travel next year again, and then she wouldn't have to force herself to hold back. She would beg her mother to take her and Shikamaru and they would go see their grandparents for the first time. There wouldn't be any nefarious reasons behind it and Hikari swore that she would somehow make it work, even if her father didn't see the need for it, now that his marriage was seemingly fixed.
She would plan and she would scheme and eventually – eventually, she would get her way. No matter what her dad thought.
Her mother was standing on the doorstep, bags arranged beside her to be put into a scroll while her father finished showering and getting dressed.
Hikari woke up extra early today to help her mother with last minute details (not that she could actually do much, other than offer her moral support) and she was now standing near her mother holding a green parcel behind her back.
Another Vision, Hikari thought, feeling her head tingling. Well - no matter, it was show time.
Phase four, begin.
"Mama!" She burst and hugged her mother's legs, before presenting the package to her.
"Here!"
Her mother giggled at her, even though her eyes were tired and stressed and kneeled down to her level. "What is it?"
Hikari grinned, "It's a gift for Mama. I made it myself."
Her mother smiled at her indulgently and took the parcel from her, carefully unwrapping a green knitted sweater.
She saw her eyes widen and satisfaction grew in Hikari's gut. Her mother lifted the sweater and unfolded it to stare at the flowers carefully embroidered around the collar and the sleeves.
"You made this yourself?" Her shocked voice made Hikari's grin widen.
"Yeah! I even made a smaller one for me!" She carefully took the much smaller sweater that had been hidden under the bigger one. "Look! Now we can match! And you won't get cold while travelling!"
Her mother beamed at her and snatched her into a tight hug. Hikari giggled and snuggled into her mother's clothes, letting her sweet perfume overwhelm her senses.
"Do you like it, Mama?"
"I love it." Her mother whispered and her throat sounded a little clogged.
"I was going to make Nii-san and Daddy sweaters too, but I couldn't finish them in time." Hikari lifted her head and stared at her mother's teary eyes. "When I finish them, everyone will have a sweater and we'll all be warm!"
The sweaters for her father and Shika had been finished a long time ago, she just didn't know what to cast on them yet. Her mother's sweater had enough spells and runes on it to make it practically armor. Hikari hadn't held back when casting on it as anything that could help her mother was layered, however she didn't know how much she should do for their sweaters. Her father was bound to suspect her if she did the same to his sweater as she did for her mother's.
"Promise me to wear it when you're travelling, Mama! I'll wear mine too! So, we could both think of each other while you're away!" She declared and with stubbornness only a child could manage, immediately started to put her own sweater on and even struggled a bit so that her giggling mother would help her.
"Now wear it, Mama!" Hikari turned bright eyes at her mother who just laughed and pulled her own sweater over her head. The weather had gotten cold enough that she wasn't bothered by the layering.
Shikaku chose that moment to walk into the living room, he only paused to give them both looks before getting closer.
Her mother smiled at him and started complimenting Hikari's work like it was her job, Hikari only stood at the side puffing her chest slightly as if showing off.
Shikaku nodded at her mother and smiled back, obediently listening to every word and even offering his own compliments. Hikari was stuck at how nice her father looked when he smiled genuinely, not even the scar looked odd when it pulled on his cheek making the smile crooked. It also speared her with the realization that she was the cause of this happy domestic conversation.
Hikari's negative feelings that had been festering ever since she started lying to her mother, dissipated. It was worth it. Everything was worth it, if her mother was happy in the end.
By the time Shikaku got started on packing the bags into scrolls, Shikamaru had finally appeared to give their mother his goodbyes.
Hikari stood on the side, watching Shikamaru being squeezed to death by their mother who was starting to cry and her father who glanced back at them with a smirk and thought yes, it was all worth it. All the nights spent as her mother's only talking companion, all the days spent with no training just to spend more time with her family, all the time spent surviving her father's cold stares, it was all nothing. Nothing compared to the gentle warmth that lit up inside her and spread to every cell of her small body.
Hikari would lie, cheat and destroy whatever she had to, to keep this warmth as long as she could.
She wouldn't be Harry anymore, she wasn't the boy who had lost everything good in his life before he was even aware of it, she wouldn't be under-prepared like Harry was when he got thrown into Hogwarts and struggled to save himself and his friends, she wouldn't let the people she loved die for her just because she was young and didn't know better.
She would be better.
On that, she swore.
So mote it be.
The edits on this chapter took too long! To be fair, this is mostly the app's fault since all my edits got deleted like twice before all the formatting got mixed up and ugh, it was a nightmare. Thank you to everyone who comments and favourites this fic, I promise that i do read all of them, I just don't have much time to reply (esp since fanfiction is so complicated in everything it does.) and partially because med school is killing me. But I do come back and read them several times to give myself motivation to continue.
Thankfully, the most recent exams just ended on Sunday and I am hoping I can fit a few more chapters on this website and also update Ao3 with at least two new chapters or something.
Thank you so much again!
