There was a loud rumbling and then a crash. A bright light flashed and my eyes popped open. The hair hit the window in sheets of rain and I shivered as another roll of thunder resounded in the night sky. I looked around my small room. It was the same as it always was. There was my fluffy and soft futon that I was laying on, my collection of stuffed animals, the dresser and closet and the collection of photos of myself and my family.

Everything was normal. Everything was in its place. My eyes lowered and I was lulled by the thought that I had some time before the members of the branch family came and woke me. I laid down on my bed and thought about the dream that I had the night before.

The Cloud ninja that had taken me. I could still feel the press of the man's shoulder in my stomach, the burn of the ropes as they cut the blood from reaching my hands making them tingle. Everything had felt so real and true as though I had lived it.

Behind my closed lids, I could have sworn that the dream that I had was real. Almost as real as the man from the moon that had saved me. The pitter patter of rain drumming against the window soothed me and my eyes stayed closed for a moment.

I thought of the man, Ashigiri and his pale skin and white hair. I remembered the feeling of him cradling me in his arms as he took me back. I reached up, my own arms wrapping around me in some attempt to recreate the feeling of the man carrying me.

My eyes shot open and I sat up in my bed, my arms still wrapped around me. I could feel it then, the vast amount of chakra that the man possessed lingering in front of my door. Last night was no dream. I was kidnapped and that man, Ashigiri, had brought me back.

He said something about the fact that the clan elders were holding me back. The very thought made me want to laugh. The elders were the standard, they were the expectation of what a Hyuga should be.

I could remember my very first impressions of them. They were strong and powerful, despite their age there was a wealth of chakra inside all of them. Far stronger than anything I would have when I was their age. But then I thought of that man, Ashigiri's chakra, and how if my was a puddle of chakra the Elder's were a lake and Ashigiri's was a vast ocean with no end.

And that chakra signature was standing beyond the door to my room. I used my Byakugan and saw the glow of chakra. He was just standing behind the door, waiting. For what I could not tell. I was curious though and so I rose from my bed and walked over to the door. With some caution, I pulled the door open and peered outside.

Ashigiri was standing there, his pale skin and white hair bright in the greys and beiges of the hall. When my eyes linked with his, a smile broke across his face. He was taller than I had ever thought. He was even taller than father. His teeth was white against the paleness of his skin, lending his flesh a slight pink color.

Did this man ever go out into the sun? Why was his skin so colorless? I feel a tremble coming on inside of me. This man with his vast power was looking at me. And he wanted to train me, he wanted something from me.

I already knew that he was going to be disappointed. My father was already showing disappointment in my progress and the Elders were speaking about how I was "under achieving" and how to correct it. Just at the sound of their correction I felt dread slither up underneath my skin. I shivered. I saw how the Elders like to correct Main members with harsh words and threats. I did not want to be the next target.

Already I could imagine the disappointment that I would bestow on Ashigiri. He was looking at me with eyes bright. He did not know that I did not have any potential. That I was nothing more than a failure. Nothing more than a shambling mess of unrealized dreams and loose change that would never amount to much.

Ashigiri stepped to the side, sweeping his hand outward, inviting me outside. I knew that I should not step out. It was improper for anyone to see a woman in her night clothes but this man was powerful and I could not help but want to know more about him. He was new and shiny and for now I wanted to know more.

I slipped out from my room, the wood flooring stark and cold against my bare feet. Zinging shocks raced up from my feet to my head, but I steadied my breathing and looked up to Ashigiri. He smiled and then offered me his hand.

"Let's go for a walk around the estate," he said, his voice still melodic. I nodded my head and took his hand. He walked around the estate as though he already knew the layout of the place. There was a confidence inside of him, around him, that I envied. It was because he had strength, he was powerful that he could walk with such ease.

I could not. My head was tucked in and I was looking at my feet the whole time that we walked. I thought of Naruto, the boisterous boy that tried to defend me from the bullies. He had that confidence, the brashness to stare at those that were more powerful and demand something from them. I wanted to be like that. I wanted to be able to look into the eyes of people and not stutter, but that was just not who I was. It was not what I was made for.

Ashigiri stopped in a sitting room. The tatami mats were warm when we walked into the room and he opened the shoji doors. Rain pattered down and I sat down in a seiza. Ashigiri did not. He leaned against one of the shoji doors forgoing sitting on one of the cushions and looked over his shoulder out into the wet garden before us.

I waited for him to speak and my hands came together. I twisted my fingers, knotting and tangling them to relieve some of the tension in the room. I did not know why he brought me out. But the kindness would not last. It never lasted. Once they saw what I was, what I could do, the disappointment would come and the kindness would dry up. It was inevitable because that is who I am. Who I will forever be.

The knotting of my hands does nothing to release the tension stirring in my gut. I could feel the tension growing in the room, swelling to the point that I felt it almost as a physical weight on my back.

"I… Thank you so much for helping me last night," I said. I bent down, my head pressed against the ground.

The silence did not lift. The longer that the silence lasted, the more powerful I felt the weight of the tension. When I could take it no longer I raised my head and found Ashigiri looking at me as though I could not be anymore foolish. I felt heat burn my cheeks and I rose from my bow and tilted my head.

What was I doing wrong? Why had he not said something? Words and apologies got stuck in my throat and my heart pounded in my ears. What could I say to fix this, to change that look into something nice? My mind was churning, coming up with scenarios and dashing them against the harsh rocks of reality.

The longer that we sat there looking at one another the more I felt as though there was nothing I could do to salvage the situation. I did not know how to fix anything. I could do nothing right. Not even apologize. I lowered my head, tucking it close to my chest.

Ashigiri made no movements. There was not even the whisper of cloth moving. I sat there, mulling over my own ineptitude.

"You should never bow your head, Byakugan princess."

I looked up. My eyes locked on Ashigiri who looked at me no longer with that look of surprise but pity. It felt even worse than the look he had given me before. I felt the heat rush once again to my face and my eyes skittered downwards to my hands. My hands were safe, they were neutral and they would not pity me.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"And you should not apologize when you have done nothing wrong," he continued. There was the quiet shushing of cloth. Movement was occurring and my eyes screwed tight. I did not know what was going to happen, but my muscles tightened waiting for impact.

Quiet hands lifted from the ground. My eyes popped open. Ashigiri was cradling me in his arms and walked back to his seat by the doors. He settled with me in his lap. His body was warm though his clothing and I shifted though I stopped. How did he want me to sit? How was I supposed to sit.

I did not know the last time someone had settled me in their lap. Had it been my father? My uncle? When had been the last time that affection like this had been bestowed upon me? I just sit with my knees to my chest and wait. Ashigiri looked out the doors once more toward the rain and breathed.

Every intake of breath expanded his chest, bringing me closer to him. Every exhale was a relief for me. I did not know how to handle this situation. A pat. A hand settled on top of my straight hair and he looked down at me.

"Do you know who you are?" Ashigiri said. His voice was softer, more quiet. The question confused me.

I was Hinata Hyuga, the heiress to the Hyuga clan, though how long that would last was to be seen. I was just Hinata, the girl who was disappointing. I shrugged my shoulders, brought closer to him with another intake of breath.

"I'm just me," I said. I was nothing more and nothing less. I was simply who I was and that was not enough.

Ashigiri shook his head, his white hair falling in front of his shoulders. "You are the dreams of generations of men and women come together. You are a future realized, my Byakugan princess."

The dreams of men and women. They would be sorely disappointed to see me, to see who I was. A finger pressed against my forehead. I looked up to see Ashigiri pressing a finger to my forehead, a sad sort of smile on his lips. He shook his head once more.

"The Elders and your father had taught you that you are not worth much. That you're only worth comes from what you cannot do. Hinata, I am here to tell you that they were wrong. You can do everything and I will train you to see that."

Me? I was tempted to laugh, but there was a seriousness to his face that sobered me. I could not do the very basics and somehow I was expected to do more than that? I could feel it as I always did, the mounting pressure behind my eyes, the beat of my heart.

Expectations. Those damning things that people place upon me. I could never live up to their expectations. And now there were more, more ways for me to disappoint. But there was nothing I could do about other people's thoughts about me.

This was just a new way to disappoint a new person.

I huddled closer into myself and felt my eyes sting with tears. It just wasn't fair. Ashigiri was so nice and here he was disappointed in me already. But then arms wrapped around my body, hands reached around her and pulled me into the warmth of his chest.

I wanted to gasp, but I stifled it to see what would happen next. This was all so new for me and Ashigiri was someone that I wanted to like, wanted to like me. He was warm and smelled like lotus blossoms. His hair tickled my cheek and nose as my face was pressed into his chest.

"I know what this may seem like to you. That I would be nothing more but another adult that is heaping their wants and desires on to you, but I assure you that this could be the farthest thing from the truth. You are special, Byakugan princess. You have a destiny that is far greater than you think." He pulled away from me then and looked me in the eye. His eye was pearl like with a hint of pink like mine had lavender.

"You will be amazing and through understanding the world and yourself you will become great. I will make sure of it."

"Why do you call me Byakugan princess?" I asked. He had been calling me that since the moment we met. I had been called princess before, though more derogatorily by the branch members of the family, but he said it in a special way. As though he truly believed me to be a princess.

"Because that is what you are. That is how Homura, the leader of our clan referred to you as," Ashigiri said.

"He spoke about me?" The thought of some man that I have never met speaking about me made me feel… I am not sure how I felt. But it appeared that he spoke about me well. He liked me enough, I think, to call me a princess. "He called me a princess?"

"He called you many things, but princess was chief among them," Ashigiri said with a chuckle that rumbled through his chest and by extension through me. I leaned away from his chest and looked up to his face. He was smiling, his eyes soft, the curve of his chin sharp. "You will make great friends with my son who you will be training with."

"Training?" The very thought made my stomach tie into knots. I know the basics of the gentle fist but there were many corrections I needed to make. The thought of Ashigiri seeing me in such an unsightly fashion made something ring in my head. He could not see me like that. Failing at the technique that every Hyuga just seemed to get. "I'm… I'm not very good at that."

Ashigiri shook his head, sending hair to tickle my cheeks once more. "You are not good with this earthly version of fighting, but what I am going to teach you comes from a place beyond Earth."

I remembered then I stared at the moon and I wished for power. And the moon responded to my wish by sending me Ashigiri. I had wished for power hadn't I? I had wished for the power to change.

My arm stretched out and I stared at the peachy color of my skin. A place beyond Earth? That explains why there were so many things different about this man. It explained why he had such pale skin and a power vast and unfathomable. My hands are grasped by his and I am amazed once more by how big adults are. So much bigger and stronger. So much more powerful than I was at this moment.

"No one is good at training," Ashigiri said, his hand plucking my fingers up and out, spreading them against his hand as though he was measuring the length of them. "You have not been trained in a fashion that suits your needs. My son and I have been watching you and we see now that the Hyuga clan is not… as adaptable as you are."

"Adaptable?" The word is clunky in my mouth as my mouth curves to take its shape. That has never been a word that has described me. I am not even sure what it means. But it sounds… nice, I suppose.

"Yes. The Hyuga style is made for stability, feet planted firmly and hands placed just so. You my dear are not made for something like that. With your natural flexibility something more… serpentine would suit your skill set better."

I was flexible? I could squeeze into pretty tight spaces when I played hide and seek with the other kids, but I would not say that it was a skill that needed to be honed. It was just something that I was okay at. I open my mouth ready to retort, but he places a hand over my mouth.

His smile feels bitter and sad when I look at it. "We will need to work on your confidence also. The Hyuga have truly made their mark on you have they not?"

He said this as though I was apart from the Hyuga, something distinct and different from my family. And maybe I was, in a way, there always seemed to be some kind of wall barring me from being part of them.

But that was the strength wasn't it. It was the gap of power between myself and them that kept me from joining them. I thought back to the night, the moon, and how I prayed for something to change me and make me powerful.

If I was powerful then I would have been able to fight the Cloud shinobi; if I was powerful then I would have the adoration of my family, my friends. Understanding that it was power that barred me from enjoying the life I wanted.

"I can train," I said. My voice was still soft, almost shy when I said it. Ashigiri nodded his head.

"Good and you will meet my son Toneri. The two of you will get along swimmingly."

My cheeks flushed at the mention of another person. A boy, a friend, someone to train and grow with. I wanted to smile at the thought. Hanabi was still too little to train and Neji was so far ahead that it didn't make sense for the two of us to train together. But Toneri would be a friend, a peer, something that I had never had before.

The thought of a friend made my insides warm and giddy with energy. A friend!

"What is he like?" I asked.

"He is a selfish brat," Ashigiri said, but he said it in that warm way that parents spoke about their children. There was a smile on his face, something soft and sweet. I could tell from the warmth in his eyes that he loved his son dearly. "He is a little head strong and over-confident but he is a good boy."

I smiled. He sounded nice. It would be nice to talk to someone. A friend… once more the word warmed me inside.

"I can't wait to meet him," I said. And it was true.

We sat there and the silence, for once, was not oppressive. It did not make my chest feel tight or make the hair on my arms rise up. It was just nice. I watched as the rain came down. The rain came down in fat drops that slapped down on the stone garden that we were looking at. The stone were arranged in a spiral formation, smooth white and black stones spiraling out from a large smooth boulder in the center of the garden.

I had seen this garden my whole life and yet when I think about the garden now, I am struck with how peaceful it was. How soft and lush it felt despite the rigidity of the materials. It was the last moment where I felt my mother's presence in the world. I think it was her last goodbye.

Feet pattered on the wood flooring of the hall. Feet moving quickly in rising thumps as they neared us. I did not move fully expecting the person, whoever they were, to bypass it. It was obviously important. No one truly ran in the Hyuga house. The most people would do is speed walk.

But the feet stopped in front of us. A Branch member's eyes whizzed around the room, but landed on us, tucked into a corner. The Branch member fell to their knees, head brushing the floor in a saikeirei.

"There is news from the Cloud Village that you must hear, Master Otsutsuki. It pertains to the kidnapping," the Branch member said. I stiffened in his arms, but Ashigiri sighed. He rose with me in his arms and at first I thought I was going with him. He then placed me on my feet.

Ah, this was adult stuff.

I did not bother to imagine what they would be talking about. I would probably fall asleep like I did the night before. But still I was curious since it had something to do with me. I shifted, uncomfortable with the thought of causing problems, but Ashigiri smiled at me and patted my head.

"I will return, little one," he said. The Branch member rose from the deep bow and the two left the room. I stood there as though waiting for something to happen to me. I shook my head and decided that visiting Hanabi would be a better use of my time.


Author's Note: You do not know how long it has been since I have written something in first person. Years. Legit I think almost 14 years since I have written something in first person. The last time I did was for a fanfic that has since been deleted. I think that I thought I was grown up by transitioning from first person and moving into the third person, but I have come to realize that all points of view are valid and I wanted to experiment and try something that I have not done in so long.

Tell me what did you think about the chapter? What do you think about Hinata's character and her struggles? Were they realistic? Was it fun to read? Any and all thoughts about this story will be greatly appreciated. Next chapter coming soon to a computer near you.