Shifting Sands Chapter 2

The Nara Clan was exactly like their stone garden. Waves of meticulously placed stone, curving by a quiet stream, upended up a warm red maple tree. For a Clan of Shinobi it was an incredibly calm place. The Nara were inviting and hospitable, allowing their children to play with her, while the adults occasionally gave her candy. Hina especially appreciated the deer that bowed to her. It was a novelty that never seemed to stop amusing her.

Despite it all it was never the same as home, in her little bakery where her parents woke up with the sun to bake bread for their district, where her mother sang her songs, her father cracked bad puns, and her brother played marbles with her. It had been a year since she had come here, and whatever hope of this being a short-term arrangement was gone now. She still occasionally had fits of fever where it felt like her skin was melting off, and the Nara were always on hand to help balance her Yin chakra. And while she was well, she sat with Hanami, learning as much from her as possible about the Nara medicinal practice, and their Clans ways and processes.

"Your eyes are open so you must not be meditating," Hanami said.

Hina sighed as she passed the little paper boat down the stream. Hanami was such a hard-ass and demanded Hina follow a frankly outrageous schedule. It was hard to get down, especially since she recalled even with her foggy memory that she'd never held to such a demanding schedule. She woke up at 6am, started her meditation by 7 which went until 12pm, and then after lunch she trained until 5pm. Which in writing didn't sound like a lot but when one took into consideration her body was only 4 years old, it was a lot. No normal 4-year-old would be expected to meditate and clear their mind for hours straight, trying to balance their incredibly large Yin supplies. Most kids would see a butterfly and follow their fancies. Hina would have too if it didn't mean certain and very painful death.

"I was looking at the ants," Hina huffed.

"Look at them during lunch. Back to meditating," the doctor said, using her walking stick to set Hina's back straight.

And like that the day went. Hina meditated, ate, and trained. Stretching, running laps, and doing body weight exercises like handstands, push ups, sit ups, and pull ups, things she barely fathomed a kid her age could do. Like always she was left exhausted, and only encouraged on by the sympathetic Nara that watched her slave master drill her to her limits.

She was saved by one Nara Shikaku. He plucked her up from a handstand, holding her up by her ankles. Hina swiped at him like a cat.

"Shikaku-san," she whined.

"You're distracting my student," Hanami said.

"Relax Hana-chan. You must be the most high-strung Nara to exist," Shikaku chuckled as he up righted Hina in his arms.

"I'll relax when my patient reaches her goals," the scarred woman said with a grimace.

"Hina won't die from an hour's early break. Will you die Hina?" Shikaku asked.

"Should you be asking a four-year-old that?" Hina sniped back.

"Oh come on, you're a smart cookie. Don't try to hide it. Come on Hana-chan. What say we give your little captive a break?"

The woman let out a long-suffering sigh, tapping her walking cane a little too hard on the ground as she limped away. Meanwhile Hina scrambled across Shikaku's face in retribution, trying to seat herself on his shoulders. He let out a muffled sound as her hands pulled at his cheeks.

"Kami, you are like an angry house cat," he laughed.

"You'd be like this too if you had to train with Hanami-sensei every day," Hina pointed out with a particularly feral grin.

"Fair point."

"Any reason you've come to bug me?"

"Such an irreverent mouth on such a small child," Shikaku chuckled fondly. "I've come to whisk you away for your own good.

"My own good?" Hina asked, cocking her head.

"It's come to my attention when you leave on Sunday to visit your family, they don't take you to parks."

Hina grimaced. Her family which had been a source of joy in her early life was now becoming a sour thought. The longer she stayed with the Nara, the less her mother would look at her in the eyes when she visited, the less she hugged her, the less she called her sweet names. Taichi who had been ever so optimistic, secretly enjoyed throwing wooden kunai with her when he visited until her mother caught him. The next time he came he stopped playing with her at all. Her father had always been the silent sort, supporting through actions rather than words, but the fresh bread he bought alongside the little presents hardly made her feel the same sort of familiarity she had when he had hugged her and kissed her goodnight.

The one day a week she spent with her family turned into a fortnightly visit, then a monthly, until finally they visited but stopped taking her home at all. Hina didn't know how to fix it. She spoke politely, smiled often, didn't disobey them when they came, but they looked at her like she was gone already. It struck her now that they had never actually taken her to a park after she was taken to the Nara Clan. Wasn't that something a normal family would do?

"Cheer up green bean," Shikaku said, giving her a knowing look.

"I'm not sad!" she insisted.

"You're not," he agreed "because we're going to the park now."

Hina didn't think she had any real desire to go to a park, outside of sitting on a swing, but she figured even adults liked that. She had very childish emotions sometimes, but it never translated to childish desires… most of the time. She didn't feel the need to play with dolls or find herself desiring friends her physical age. When it came to her family though, there was something deeply hurtful about their actions. But she supposed she was an adult mentally and could deal with these issues without a breakdown, so she laughed and joked with Shikaku as he took her to a park.

She found herself in a place that actually interested her. There were the usual playground items like swings and slides, but the park they ended up in also had a lot of monkey bars, and netted climbing areas built into the surrounding trees. It was quite impressive for a park.

"Is this normal for parks?" Hina asked.

Shikaku sent her an odd look, one she wasn't quite sure was guilt or sympathy. "It's a little bit more on the adventures side, but you can already tree walk."

"How did you know that?" Hina asked, eyes going wide.

"You're not a secretive as you think," he said with a teasing smile. "I don't think it's too dangerous for you, but if you do fall there will most likely be a very strong ninja to catch you."

A ninja park, Hina thought in amusement. She climbed down from Shikaku's shoulders taking his hand as she was led to the park. A bunch of kids were there, mostly with their mothers, so Hina took pleasure in knowing Shikaku was just as unsure of what to do with himself as she was. She stepped into the park, looked back at him and he gestured for her to continue. She took another few steps and sat on the see-saw before looking back at him for help. He gave her a thumbs up. After a few minutes of awkwardly rocking back and forth on the creaky little thing, she got off and looked around for the next thing to do before looking back at Shikaku who was now accosted by several mothers all cooing at him. Being a 20 something year old man, he was flushing a deep red as he got backed into a corner by the women.

"Glad I'm not the only one suffering."

After expertly climbing all the rope, Hina hung down from her legs upside down bored to death. None of the other kids looked like they wanted to play with her. They were too caught up on whatever it was they were doing. She wasn't even sure she wanted to play with them, not until strikingly white hair caught her eyes. She watched the boy throwing rubber kunai at the nearby posts with a precision no little child should have. But the white gravity defying hair and striking black mask on a rather dull looking child marked him as Kakashi. Hina was instantly curious. She had no frame of reference where exactly she was in the timeline of the story she previously read, or if even parts of it were accurate. For all she knew she was in an alternative dimension where Kakashi was a girl, Minato was in Kumo, and Danzo was a schoolteacher.

Of course, she saw the Hokage monument. Sarutobi was the latest Hokage, so that put her somewhere before Minato came into Hokageship. But that was still a vague timeline for her. Judging by how tall the little white-haired boy was, she concluded he must have been around her age at least. She wanted to know exactly when, so she would get an idea of when the upcoming war would start.

He must have noticed her staring from above because he turned to look at her. She smiled and waved, twisting her body upright before swinging to the nearby tree and walking down it. He squinted his eyes at her feet.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"Tree walking?" she asked back.

"I want to learn."

The genuine curiosity in his eyes was refreshing. This Kakashi wasn't depressed yet, if not a little bit haughty for a kid his age, demanding things before even introducing himself.

"Nothing in life comes for free. Tell me your age and I'll show you how," she offered.

He squinted even more if that was even possible. She thought he looked like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. It was cute in a way.

"Okay. I'm 4 years old," he said.

"Cool, cool," Hina repeated, humming in thought before she saw Kakashi's impatient look. "Alright, you know what chakra is?"

"Of course I know."

"Good, you'll want to push it to your feet, not too much that the force will push you back, but just enough to latch you to a surface. Think of it like… Velcro," she said.

"Velcro?" he asked.

"Yeah like the thing that makes the latch on your shoes sticky," she said.

"Okay, I'm going to do that."

"Cool, I'll watch. Good luck."

And just like that Hina figured she made her first friend… well she may have been jumping the gun a little there, but the sentiment remained. She sat back on the swing and watched in interest as Kakashi tried climbing. The other kids took notice after a few minutes of watching the odd boy no doubt fall on his ass a dozen or so times. Despite their laughing and overall mocking of his failures, Kakashi seemed almost like he didn't even register them. He was single-mindedly focused on the task. Hina recalled the feeling. She had been like that once. She remembered throwing herself into work for hours, weeks, with a kind of unparalleled focus until she achieved a breakthrough.

Shikaku regretted taking Hina to the playground. He thought it would be a simple matter, after all he was a Shinobi, and this was literal child's play. He did not consider that he would have garnered the attention of the dozen mothers at the park.

"So young and taking care of your daughter," one of the ladies said, with an appreciative look.

"You must be such a good father."

And just like that Shikaku found himself unable to get a word in as the ladies began assuming he was a struggling single father. The more they assumed the more tragic his supposed backstory became. A dead wife? Disowned from his family for getting a girl pregnant young? He had no idea where they came up with such ideas.

"I actually—"

"—You must have it so hard raising a little girl all on your own."

"—Actually Hina is—"

"—Girls can be such a handful sometimes of course. Kami knows my little Yumi demands I buy her a dozen dresses a week. Of course I have to get it for her, since she's so cute."

Shikaku held back a long-suffering sigh as he was squished in-between the woman on the bench. He looked at Hina who was now sitting on a swing alone watching a bunch of children crowing around a boy trying to tree-walk. She looked a little lonely.

Somehow, he felt responsible for that. There weren't many Nara Clan children her age in the compound, their current youngest was a babe, and the second youngest his cousin's child was 15 and on mission roster. Whatever little time the girl had with her brother was slowly dwindling according to Hanami. There was a divide between Hina and her family that was growing and Shikaku was reluctant to get involved and accidentally make things worse. He was a tactical mind, but family matters were a little beyond him, especially issues regarding parenting. He didn't have a child of his own and he wasn't even married. God knows Hanami wasn't the most socially stable person to raise a child either. The woman was deeply traumatised by the 2nd Shinobi war and had lost that little bit of spark that had brought her joy before.

So yes, he felt somewhat responsible for the kid, and if that meant suffering a bunch of nosy mothers in a park, he would.

"Ladies, thanks for watching my boy for me."

Shikaku turned around to see Hatake Sakumo. A rather legendary figure within the Shinobi community. The kind of top-ranking Jounin that had people whispering about potential to be a Hokage candidate. Looking at him, he simply seemed like a weary man. Shikaku had seen him once before laughing as he held his pregnant wife with a rare joyfulness for a Shinobi to have. Then she had died, and he had held onto his boy with the same love, but it seemed there was something missing there. Something about him had died with her, and it was noticing little things like this that made Shikaku reluctant to love anyone himself.

"Of course Hatake-san, Kakashi-kun is such a little pleasure. Doesn't cause any trouble."

He nodded, a real smile on his face at the mention of his child. "Nara-san, what a surprise to see you here."

"You're a welcome sight Hatake-san. I was here for my—"

"—His daughter. The lovely little girl there with the green hair."

Shikaku groaned as Sakumo looked at him and then his 'daughter' with a kind of look that had him calculating when Shikaku would have been a father. Thankfully he didn't proceed to make wild conjectures about his tragic love life.

"Ladies, I apologise, but I'd like to take Nara-san off your hands. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course not! I'm sure you can impart some fatherly wisdom that we can't."

Shikaku breathed a sigh of relief as he was rescued from their clutches. He shivered.

"Women are scary."

"They're just a little overeager. It's rare for us men to take part in our children's life like this, so they find us a bit of a novelty."

Shikaku supposed, women did more often than not quit being Shinobi to raise their children whereas the father's continued on the profession. Konoha had made it easier for the mother's recently, subsidising their children's needs should they have been called back on a mission, but tradition over the years had won out.

"Just to make it clear, Hina is not my daughter. I'm just looking after her today," Shikaku said, huffing a sigh of relief when Sakumo didn't interrupt him midway.

"I had assumed it was the case. A Clan Heir having a child so young would have been news," Sakumo replied.

"Glad to clear that up. I just know there's going to be rumours now," he sighed.

Sakumo chuckled but didn't disagree with his comment. "It is unusual for a busy Clan Head to be taking a young girl to the park. Most would assume she was your daughter."

"She is a Nara ward."

"An orphan?"

"Not quite. She has a medical condition, some kind of chakra disorder we're working on."

Sakumo regarded the girl, no doubt sensing her chakra for himself. His face coloured with mild surprise for a moment.

"That's quite an unbalanced tenketsu system," he noted.

Shikaku sighed. "It was much worse a year ago than what you can see now. She's making progress, but it takes quite a chunk out of her day, leaving her exhausted. She hardly has time to play. I don't think she knows quite how anymore."

"Are you sure?"

Shikaku turned to where Sakumo was pointing. Hina was talking to Kakashi, pointing to his feet, and then making wild gestures. And suddenly the kids who were laughing were now making sounds of wonder as Kakashi began very shakily climbing the tree.

"She's quite impressive. We try to keep the young ones from learning that too early. Did you teach her?"

Shikaku felt a little proud when he shook his head. "Nope she learnt that all on her own as a toddler."

"And I thought my boy was impressive."

Kakashi was still rather impressive. Shikaku had thought Hina had been a one in a million genius, but to see another boy barely half a decade old show such talent with his chakra control was impressive.

"The next generation is scary," he said.

"You aren't old enough to be talking like that yet Nara-san."

"Please, call me Shikaku," he said, giving Sakumo a nod.

"Then you can call me Sakumo. I'm sorry but I'll have to cut this meeting short. Maybe we can arrange for them to play together sometime?" he said.

Shikaku grimaced as he wondered how he'd run it by Hanami. He was clan head, so why was he so scared of her? It must be because she's a woman, he decided. Still Hina was technically his ward until she got better, so this was the least he could do.

"I'll make some time for her on the weekends, although another clan member might be the one bringing her along," he said.

"It will be good for them to finally have a friend. It does not do good for one to travel this world alone," Sakumo said.

Shikaku had a feeling the man was talking about himself in a way too. He seemed lonely. If Shikaku had a single extrovert bone in his body he would have offered companionship, but he seemingly couldn't. He had an incredible number of duties, and he couldn't offer that kind of companionship to anyone but his family in the Clan where he could guarantee his presence. The Hatake were the remnants of a once great clan now. Sakumo would have to find a connection elsewhere. But his son did not.

"Next week, this time. I'll make sure she's here."

Sakumo smiled at that, briefly bowing a polite goodbye before picking up his son. Hina waved at him as he left as the other children animatedly began talking to her. Shikaku watched in amusement as she sent him a look of 'help I'm being smothered', and he was content to let her suffer the children for a bit.

=Knowing that Kakashi was her age wasn't in any way a relief for Hina. This set into stone that by the time she was at least 9 or 10 full out world war would break out, and she was more than 100% sure the tensions were already rising increasing skirmishes around the borders and prompting Shinobi to be more on guard. So she had to spend her childhood trying not to die from her chakra system overloading on top of a war. It wasn't exactly an ideal scenario, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense to start early when there were more Shinobi and Konoha wasn't desperate. By the end of the war they were sending fresh Genin out of the Academy to the front lines, and even past borders if she recalled the Kanabi mission correctly.

Seeing Kakashi had been a bit of a wake-up call, and so Hina began putting her heart and soul into her training, focusing more on improving chakra control and everything else that came with it. She was so used to her routine now that she had forgotten it was a visitation day. Hina went out to sit by the river and meditate. The smell of freshly baked bread made her perk up and run to the gates.

"Tousan!" she greeted happily.

Her father chuckled as he ruffled her hair and held out her favourite melon pan bread. She ignored it, giving him a hug.

"Hina, you're going to make me drop the bread," Nori said lightly.

"Sorry," she apologised, letting go of him as he straightened out the little things, he'd gotten her.

"It's alright sweetie. I got you some sweet buns and melon pan of course. I also brought you some hair pins. Want to see them?" Nori asked.

Hina wasn't particularly excited about those, they were a nice thought, but she wished he would just pick her up and tell her all about his day, and how Taichi was doing. But instead of saying that she put on a smile and nodded. He looked at her oddly for a moment before pulling out the hairpins which were pink and floral. She thought they looked cute, not very discreet for a Shinobi, but she wasn't one yet so it wouldn't matter.

"It's pretty, thanks. How is Tai-nee and kaasan? Where are they?" she asked.

"They had to go a little earlier to attend your cousin's birthday."

"Cousin Matsu?" Hina asked, her smile faltering.

"Yes, I know you and Taichi think he's a little annoying, but he's actually a sweet boy once you get to know him. His parents spoil him with gifts like I spoil you, and you're such a good girl," he said, handing the basket over.

Hina hesitated. "No one told me. Maybe I can come today. I'll go get changed."

"We'll be fine without you there. Plus you have your recovery to work on," Nori said, sending her a smile.

Hina smiled back, but it came out more as a grimace. "I'll be fine, I promise. I've made so much progress. Maybe in a year or two I'll be back home with you again. One day out won't kill me."

"Let's not risk it okay. And it's a little last minute. Speaking of last minute I have to go okay sweetie. Take care of yourself," he said hurriedly as he looked at his watch.

"Okay… bye tousan," she said as she hugged his leg.

He looked down at her with a warm smile, as he pat her head briefly and left. Hina stared at the little gift basket on the ground, squatting in front of it and taking out a melon bread. She was fine. This was fine. It wasn't like this was the first time she'd seen her father in 3 weeks. She took a bite out of the bread, and it was as good as she remembered, but for some reason she couldn't enjoy it anymore. She took another bite, forcing herself to remember how much she loved it when they brought it here. The third bite was wet and salty, and she realised a little late that she was crying.

They hadn't even told her it was Cousin Matsu's birthday this day. Her mother and brother hadn't even come to visit. Her father hadn't once hugged her the entire time and he'd rushed out for the party… without her.

"Hina-chan are you okay?"

Hina wiped furiously at her eyes as she heard one of the Nara women approach her. She nodded, looking up at the mother carrying her baby.

"I-I'm fine. Just… might be getting another fever again," she said.

"Aw sweetie, you should always tell one of us if you're in pain okay. Let me get Hanami-san here."

"I'm fine," Hina insisted.

Unfortunately for her she had made the excuse of her health and Hanami found her sitting by the river again. The woman hobbled over to her, taking a while to sit down with her limp and cane.

"You aren't going through a fever, and your chakra levels are pretty stable. Hina don't make me worry like that," she huffed.

"Sorry," Hina said.

The woman looked at her for a moment and was unusually silent. Hina didn't expect Hanami to put an arm around her, bringing her head to her chest. Hina melted into the hug, holding back tears.

"Sometimes you're so mature I forget you're just a kid."

Hina hated how true that was. For as much as she remembered snippets of a life lived before, she had never felt so much like a child than she did right now.

A/N

Hi friends. Thanks for all your continued support. I've drawn some art for this chapter, but can't upload it here in fanfic. You can find the art on my insta under jaz_hop, or on AO3 where I crosspost this storey. My username there is also jaz_hop.

Also I know the first few chapters will be similar to Snap Back, but I guarantee you things start to change next chapter onwards.