There was light in my face. The light was hot, heating up the skin of my face. But the skin on my face felt tight and a little bit sticky. Like when I got sunburned one time and my mother slathered on some sunscreen. My eyes fluttered, but something felt off. They ached, my eyes, as though something had happened to them, but for the life of me I could not remember what it was.

I rolled over on my bed, a hand slipped out from under the covers and dangled in the air. Dangled? I slept on a futon and that was right on the floor. I opened my eyes despite the persistent aching behind them. I was on a cot with my arm hanging up off the ground. My eyes shifted, but they hurt with the movement.

Groaning, I lean back on the cot and look around the space. I am in the sick room where they tend to the sick Hyugas. We had a sick room for the infirmed. Most minor illnesses and injuries were handled here. Anything major would have to be dealt with at the hospital. Hyugas were insular in that we did not want others to use us as lab rats or harvest our eyes.

I shifted a little bit on the cot. I wonder what happened and when it was that I fell asleep. I recounted the day before. I went to go and see Hanabi. We played together and enjoyed one another's company. Then I was called before the Elders. They gave me something telling me to drink it. I drank it and then I fell asleep.

My dreams were nothing more than a flash of colors in my mind. I could remember voices somewhere in the middling distance. I could remember the face of someone, many someones and them reaching for me. But my dreams ended there. There was nothing else for me to grasp at.

I roll over onto my stomach and stretch my hands out in front of me. Vertebrae in my spine crack, the tension in my back melting away. How long have I been in the sick room? Did I faint? Maybe that would explain the throbbing behind my eyes and the lack of memory. But nothing that Hanabi did could have warranted such a reaction from me. I shake my head. Maybe I am just as bad as they say.

The light flitting through the windows of the sick room is grey meaning that it is sometime before dawn. Long before the time in which I usually woke up. I shifted and turned my head since moving my eyes was something that was out of the question. The sick room was nothing more than a wooden cottage with cots and a desk where the resident healer was supposed to be staying. There was no one there now. Windows were hung behind every cot as the Hyuga were very big on the belief that the natural world was healing and sunlight assisted in the process.

I got on my knees and turned to face the window. I was too small to see out the window on my own. My hands fastened on the ledge of the windowsill and with strength I did not know I possessed I lifted myself up. My chin grazed the windowsill and it took all my strength to hold the form, but I was able to see out the window.

No one was in the garden. Trees, old and wizened, rose up, shadowing the sick room. I turned my head leaned forward, but the pressure and strength in my hands failed and I was sent careening downward back onto the cot. I landed with a soft "ooph" and I stared at the ceiling for a moment.

No one was there. Did that mean I could leave? They put me here for a reason and the state of my eyes meant that there was something wrong with me. What if I was contagious? I would not want to bring whatever was wrong with me to my sister and father. Brother Neji too.

My eyes darted over to the desk. Then I closed them because of the aching behind them. No, too soon to do that. The doctor for the sick room was not there. Maybe they had gone to lunch. But usually there was someone there, there was someone waiting for the sick people to wake up and care for them. My heart sank in my chest. Was I not worth waiting for?

I shook my head again. No, they were probably at lunch or something. Who knew how long I was asleep and they probably got hungry. I rose from the bed. There was a shock of cold as my feet landed on the cool wooden floor. I walked over to the door and opened it.

The scent of morning dew and flowers wafted over to me. There was a slight chill in the air and I was dressed loosely in a white dressing gown. I wrapped my arms around myself and made my way forward. The house was silent when I entered. I could not hear the bustle of the Branch family members, nor the chatter of the house. Everything was silent and still, as though it was waiting for something to happen.

I walked through the house, turning my head to see into each and every room. No one. There was no way. My anxiety ratcheted up, the thought that I was alone in such a huge place made my throat feel like it was about to close. Why did everyone go?

I heard murmuring from one room. Eager to hear the voices, I rushed over to see the people. I swung open the door and sitting there was one of the Elders and the whole of the Branch members. They were all seated, listening as the Elder spoke, though he stopped when I opened the door.

The Branch members turned and when they saw me, they all recoiled as though I had done something abhorrent. I looked at them all and every time my eyes met theirs the Branch member flinched. I walked forward, trying to meet the eye of someone. When I reached the front of the crowd, I looked up to the Elder who was staring at me as though I was some kind of side show project. Immediately, my hands began to twist and knot, I knew something was wrong with me but I didn't know what.

"Hello, Elder Hatayashi… Can you please tell me what is going on?" I fumbled over my words but the question came out clear. I looked up and when the Elder met my eye they smiled, big and brilliant. I had never had an Elder smile at me and despite the way that my stomach was twisting my lips curled up into a returning grin.

"This is something that your father should tell you about," Elder Hatayashi said and nodded their head. "Come child. I will take you to him." The old man turned and walked from the room. Elders did not tell you to follow them. You were just expected to know what to do. So I trailed after him. I spared a glance once more to the Branch members but they all flinched as though I had slapped all of them at once.

My head turned back to the back of the Elder. They were speaking. I should probably listen.

"You have been the recipient of something amazing. Something that will bring the Hyugan clan to new heights. You are going to be so much better than you were before, Hinata. Once everything will be explained, you will be grateful for the opportunity that has been bestowed upon you."

Opportunity? What was going on? Were they talking about the fact that Ashigiri was going to be training me? But then they were the Branch members looking at me as though there was something wrong with me? Nothing was making sense anymore. I was confused and I really wanted someone to explain what was going on.

I wanted an answer and when I saw the door to my father's office I felt my relief swept through me. Finally I was going to get some answers. I raced past the Elder, forgetting my manners, and pushed the door open to my father's office. He was seated behind his desk and Ashigiri was standing there too. I sighed when I saw the two of them with my own two eyes.

Ashigiri stood up from the chair he was sitting in. I barely had a moment to breathe before he was in my face. He gripped my chin, tilted her head this way and then the other way. My eyes widened. No one had handled me like this in a while, but I did not know what to expect.

"Hmm, seems like the eyes are settling in well. The transplant was a success," Ashigiri said as he held my chin. Transplant?

Father came out from around the desk and looked me in the face. "I have never seen something so… You were right that that transplant would unlock the Tenseigan, but I did not believe you."

"Now you are assured of my good will?" Ashigiri said with a derisive snort. "Not the fact that I saved your daughter the first night I met her."

"The world is filled with bad actors. I did not know if you were just another plot from the Cloud Village."

"I do not meddle in Earthly politics."

"So you say."

I fidgeted in my spot. My head twisted out of his grip and I held the hospital gown I was wearing in my hands. Their words were making no sense to me and the previous comfort that I felt at the sight of my father had vanished. What was going on? I needed answers.

I opened my mouth and spoke, "What is going on Father? Why did I wake up in the sick room?"

My father looked at me. It was not with his usual disdain, but there was something calculated in the way that he was looking at me. It was the look that he gave when he was weighing something, considering his options. I didn't like the look. He had never looked at me like that before. I was always a disappoint. There were no options for me. But something had changed and I didn't know what it was.

"Come and sit Hinata." My father made his way to his desk and sat behind it once more. He settled in resting his hand against the armrests. I looked to Ashigiri who let go of my face and sat in front of the desk once more. Leaving just the chair next to him to take. I turned around and looked behind me at Elder Hatayashi whose smile was so big that it near stretched out off her face. I shuddered at the thought.

The elder closed the door and I stumbled over to the seat. Sitting down, I was struck by how small I was. My father and Ashigiri were so big and strong. They towered over me and the chair, with all the space that I had, recounted that fact to me. I was small and they could do whatever they pleased with me.

I looked around, making sure to move my head and not my eyes. My fingers fumbled over one another and my father's eyes were drawn to the action. His face tightened and he opened his mouth, probably to reprimand me, but then Ashigiri coughed. The two adults shared a look and something passed between them, something about me I knew, and my father closed his mouth.

Ashigiri turned toward me then his eyes bright. "You Hinata has gotten a very good procedure done on your eyes. Something that will make you more powerful and help you in your training."

A hand reached up and tapped my eye. A wave of achiness pulsed through me. I knew something had been done to my eyes and now I was finally learning. The word that he had used before popped into my mind.

"Transplant… You said the word transplant," I said. I had an inkling of what the word meant. I knew that it was a medical procedure, but the process, the meaning of the word eluded me. I just knew that it had been done to me. "What is that?"

"We took the eyes from someone else, someone dead, and we placed them in your head. That is what a transplant is," my father said.

I snapped my head around to look at him and widened my eyes — no someone else's eyes — to look at my father. These were not my eyes. These were not my eyes. I felt sick to my stomach with the thought of someone else's eyes rolling around in my head.

My breathing came out in gentle pants as the anxiety and terror ratcheted up inside of me. I wanted nothing more than to rip the eyes from my head.I placed a hand over not my eye. Ashigiri shook his head and threw a sharp look at my father before he turned my chair to face him.

"We did it because we wanted to unlock something inside of you, a power and it was successful," Ashigiri said. I felt my stomach flop around in my chest. What power? Why would they do this? Without asking me? I felt as though I was going to vomit.

Ashigiri said nothing else, just grabbed a small hand mirror on the desk and presented it for me to look at. I peered inside and gasped. My eyes were no longer the pale pupil-less lavender that I was used to seeing. No by eye was a light blue with a white flower iris. My pupil was a darker shade of blue from the iris but these were not my eyes.

As I stared at myself I reached forward a hand and touched the mirror. It was me as the reflection in the mirror clearly showed. I wanted to scream but it was trapped inside of me bouncing around my organs and just making me feel sick.

I look to my father, but he said nothing his face a stonewall as he watched me. Measured me. I wanted to scream and cry out, but I felt nothing but churning and screaming inside of me. I look up at Ashigiri and he is smiling down at me as though I should be grateful for what they have done to me.

"This," Ashigiri stated, "is the Tenseigan. The next step in evolution for the Byakugan. With these eyes you will gain access to a whole host of abilities that I will be training you in how to use."

"Otsutsuki was kind enough to tell us of the next stage of the Byakugan and bestow it upon you. You will rise above the rest of your peers when it comes to the practical application of chakra with this," Hiashi said.

I wanted to gag. They had done a transplant on me without my permission. They had taken my eyes. And all they could talk about what was a good ninja I would become. I looked at Ashigiri who was smiling at me and nodding along to whatever my father said.

I trusted him and he was the one that placed me on the chopping block. Revulsion deep and rolling pushed through me and then it just collapsed under its own weight. There was no point in getting angry. There was no point because these men were stronger than me. They had more power than me.

But this Tenseigan from whoever's eyes they came from would give me power. Something stilled inside of me. Every thought and muscle was locked into place. I had always been the butt of the joke. And I thought with Ashigiri, he at the very least would protect me. But he had done this. The world respected power and Ashigiri had placed in my hands power.

I stared into the mirror, watching the white flower design around my pupils. If power was something that people respected, if strength was all there was in this world, then I would simply have to become powerful. I would have to become flexible and adaptable so that no one would violate me like this again.

A smile, fragile in its construction, settled on my face. I turned to Ashigiri and my father and smiled. I thanked them for the opportunity and bent at the waist in a deep bow. Ashigiri's smile grew larger and my father seemed pleased with the performance. I asked to be excused to my room and I took my leave.

I walked through the house and I could hear them. The whispers of how they did something to my eyes. They did something to me. Shame and revulsion followed my every step. I wanted to shout that I did not ask for this. I did not ask to have my very body altered and my eyes stolen from me. But there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say.

Pausing, I watched as Neji stood out in the garden. His shoulders were shaking, his body twitching as he attempted to hold in sobs. I walked over to him and patted him on his shoulder. He shrugged away from my touch. I frowned and looked at the memorial stone where we kept the names of dead Hyugas.

My eyes caught on the latest addition: Hizashi Hyuga. My mouth flopped open. Uncle Hizashi was dead? But he had not gone on any missions? He was here at home.

"You did this."

The voice was acidic and vitriolic. I turned to look at Neji and when our eyes clashed his sneer deepened on his face. "You and your Main branch family did this to my father."

"Brother Neji I —"

"I should have known something like this would have happened to my father. It is the fate of the Branch family to always serve the main family isn't it. But just know this Lady Hinata." He took a step forward and I took a step back. Something deep and wicked passed through his face when he saw the abject horror on my face. "I will never serve and abomination like you."

Abomination.

Is that what I was now? I was no longer a failure but something that should not have existed in the first place. Tears gathered in the eyes that had been placed in my head. I thought that life was horrible before and it was only getting worse.

"I — Brother Neji I — I never asked for this!" I said, my voice raising toward the end of the sentence. But Neji was set on misunderstanding me. "I don't know what happened, but know I never wanted this."

"It doesn't matter what you want, Lady Hinata. What matters is what Fate demands. And Fate demanded that my Father die for the Main House." His words were heavy and final. My heart felt as though it was being torn to shreds but Neji just gave me one final glare before he turned and walked from the memorial stone.

I stared at the name. Had I done this? Is that… Did these eyes belong to…? No, it could be. I gagged the sound audible in the light that was breaking along the horizon. I was a monster now… but monsters were scary right? I gathered myself and made my way to the room.

Monsters at least had some power.


Author's Note: And that is a wrap on the next chapter! Thank you everyone who has been reading and following along. I really appreciate the love that this story has been getting. I have been having fun writing this between classes and just diving deep into the world of Naruto once more.

I have really rekindled my love for this fandom and I find that amazing. Look how long you could love something. But in other news, what do you think happened to Hinata? I wanted Hinata to have some I don't know, resolve? And I thought that this was the best way to do that.

This story is not against the idea of transplants or anything, but I wanted to highlight the lack of autonomy that Hinata is experiencing with her body as the men in her life just made a large medical decision without consulting her. I think the revulsion comes from the fact that her eyes and body are no longer what she wants them to be.

Anyway, ConCrit is always appreciated. Happy reading!