Pain of Normalcy

By Viktor Mayrin

Disclaimer: Clearly, I don’t own Naruto. I do, however, own Himawari.

Naruto had always been a person to jump at being a “knight in shining armour”. He couldn’t stand to see girls crying, let alone girls he knew personally. The first time Sakura cried, he’d panicked. The first time Hinata had cried, he’d felt as if he had torn out his own heart.

When he saw tears streaming down his daughter’s face, he knew that the pain welling up in his stomach could not be surpassed. Naruto had hugged her close, whispering apologies and promises, trying everything, anything, to make the tears stop.

When she finally did stop crying, she had retreated to her room and quietly closed the door. A short while later, she walked out, wearing a threadbare jacket with a distinctive spiral on the back. She walked into the kitchen and tugged on her mother’s apron.

Hinata needed no further prompting as she scooped up the girl with one arm while putting the finishing touches on a tray of cinnamon buns. Most children, especially boys, did like being held by the time they where five. Unlike most children, Himawari thrived on touch. She couldn’t go a a day without pouncing on her brother or getting a hug from her mother.

So really, it shouldn’t have surprised her that she didn’t have enough chakra for a girl her age. She was, in essence, a chakra sink. Her body couldn’t produce enough chakra, so she was compelled to absorb it from other people. Instead of going into her chakra well, it simply… disappeared.

She was, if anything, a liability as a Shinobi. She wouldn’t be able to mold her chakra because her own reserves where so low. She would not be able to touch anyone, for fear of draining them of their chakra. As a result, she would be sluggish, unable to keep up the necessary energy levels required for missions.

It also meant that she would never be able to follow in her brother’s footsteps, let alone her parents’. That alone was enough to shatter her dreams into a thousand pieces. Life as the Hokage’s daughter that couldn’t be a ninja was the worst thing she could think of.

To be a civilian in a world full of Shinobi was like a death sentence.

So while her mother was making tomorrow’s breakfast, Himawari simply held on to the anchor that was her mother. Tomorrow, Himawari would be going to the civilian school on the far side of the village while her brother started his fourth and final year at the Ninja Academy a few streets over. Tomorrow, she would be surrounded by people who didn’t expect someone to appear in a flash, drop a scroll, and disappear before you could blink twice.

Tomorrow, Uzumaki Himawari would be a normal eight-year-old girl going to school, instead of Uzumaki Himawari, Shinobi in training.

A fresh wave of tears descended on her like a ravaging hurricane. Her mother responded almost immediately to the tightening of her small arms. The cinnamon buns where placed into the oven and Hinata sat down on the sofa, allowing her daughter to sob silently into her shoulder.

“I wanted to be like papa.” Himawari finally managed between sobs. “I wanted to help people.”

Hinata, to her credit, simply tightened her arms, mirroring her husband’s trademark bear hug. Naruto had once said that it was his way of saying, “I won’t let the world touch you right now.”

After the tears passed, and Himawari had finally slipped into a peaceful sleep, Hinata carried the small girl to her room and tucked her in, arranging the various plush dolls close to the girl before slipping back into the kitchen.

“All right, Naruto. She’s in bed.” Hinata said

The bear hug engulfed her in full force. Hinata sunk into Naruto’s embrace as they stood in the kitchen, worrying. Worried about how she was going to have to realize that normal people didn’t talk about the basics of chakra manipulation at the lunch table, or that she couldn’t just whip out a kunai and start trimming her nails with it when she got bored.

“She’ll be alright. Somehow. She’ll find a friend, or a friend will find her.” Naruto murmured. “She’ll learn. Maybe not tomorrow, or the next day. Maybe not even in a month, but she’ll learn.”

“But will she be Himawari? Will she be the same little girl who begged to watch you tinker with the Rasengan or to learn the katas for Jyuuken?” Hinata asked sadly. “Or will she be asking us to help her with chemistry homework? Wanting to know if we can proofread an essay before she turns it in?”

“I don’t know, Hina-chan.” Naruto replied. “All I know is that my daughter will do the best she can.”

Hinata nodded absently. “That’s both of us working in her, I’d say.”

They stood in silence for a long time, worrying.

End Prelude

A/N: Takes place roughly two years before the events of Whirlpool Rising.