Chapter 2: When It All Started

"She's only top of class because her dad is Hokage and her mom is the top medic in the village, so sensei is playing favorites."

'That's not true…'

"She's only skilled because of her genetics. Did you see how easy it was for her to do that jutsu earlier?"

'No… I worked so hard.'

"She has such an easy life. It must be nice being handed everything on a silver platter and never having to work for anything. I even heard she got her summoning contract already just because Hokage-sama had a contract."

'It's not easy… I worked for a year for it.'

"Miyu?"

The nine year old girl was jerked out of her deep thoughts then and found her mother smiling down to her. When had she gotten that lost in thought?

"Oh, hi, mama." she flashed a big grin towards the pink haired woman as she stood up.

She had been sitting on the steps outside of the hospital waiting for her mother to finish up her shift. She could have easily went inside and waited in her office, but she didn't like being inside the hospital for long periods of time. She didn't like the feeling it gave her. Sakura often told her that she inherited her father's disdain for the place and she thought that it was odd to inherit such a trait.

Her brothers had already ran home since they didn't want to wait, so she allowed herself to think over her day while she patiently waited.

"Is everything alright? You looked pretty lost in thought for a second." her mother asked as they started walking home.

"Of course!" Miyu replied a little too eagerly, which caused her mother to raise a brow, "I was just thinking about my day at the academy. We got to finally dabble in transformation jutsus."

Miyu didn't lie with what she said. She just didn't add the fact that she overheard a large group of her classmates talk about her behind her back after school and that she happened to hear all of it. It had been happening a lot lately since this school year started a few months ago. But, she didn't want to worry her parents about it. She was tough. She could handle this on her own, she figured.

When they were with Shino-sensei they got to do their first attempts of performing a transformation jutsu that they had been learning about in class. She had been so excited because her father had shown her the signs and how to do it at home a month earlier and she had practiced for hours in her room since then. It took her two weeks before she could do a poor transformation of her father and hone her chakra just right to hold the jutsu for longer than a minute.

She had been so excited to do it in class and show off her hard work. Shino-sensei had been impressed and gave her the top mark.

"Like usual, you have impeccable chakra control just like your mother. Perfect score, Miyu."

That was the beginning of her sour mood for that day. It was a trend she was discovering lately. Everyone, even her family, compared her to her parents constantly. It was never her skills, her personality, or her looks. It was always her parents.

"You look just like your mother, but you have your father's eyes."

"You have your mothers chakra control."

"You have the same eye crinkling smile Kakashi has."

"You got those fighting skills from your dad."

"Book smart just like your mom. Natural genius like Hokage-sama though!"

"Your temper is exactly like your mothers!"

All her hours of studying hard and training until she bled were pushed to the side just because her parents were two incredibly skilled and renowned shinobi. It didn't matter that she achieved all of her goals and milestones by her own determination and hardwork just like they had, but everyone assumed it was something she simply knew from the start. Her mom explained that she had trained with granny Tsunade for years to gain her strength, but people recognized that with her mother, Miyu thought. Why couldn't they recognize that with her too?

"Oh? Tell me, how did it go?"

Miyu shrugged as she thought of a proper reply besides that she hated the experience. That she wished she could jump ahead three years and be genin already. Leave behind all the pointed looks and snide comments.

"It was able to do it. Papa showed me last month, remember? I practiced for hours in my room…"

Sakura hummed happily next to her as they walked through the small crowds.

"Your father will be happy to hear that. You're giving a good name to our family."

All she could do in reply was bit her lip and nodded passively.

'Seems like that's all I'm useful for.'

"Sis is sad again today." Tomiko whispered to his brother as they started to walk back upstairs to their room.

Kyouzou gave him a knowing nod as they both glanced over from the bottom of the steps and watched their sister help clear the table from their dinner. They both had noticed that their big sister had been acting off for the last couple months. The seven year olds had been playing with a few ideas as to why Miyu's behavior had changed so suddenly.

"Did she say anything to you?" Kyouzou asked after the door was shut to their room.

Tomiko shook his head as he plopped down in his desk chair while his twin laid on his own bunk.

"No. She's been silent since she got home with mom besides talking about the transformation jutsu she did today at school during dinner."

Silence passed between the two for a few moments as the comment lingered in the air.

"It's becoming more frequent."

Tomiko nodded at his brothers observation.

"I noticed she stays in her room more too." he added.

"Maybe that's some girl thing? Puberty?" Kyouzou asked.

The green eyed Hatake scoffed at his brother and shook his head again.

"Gross, no. She's only nine. you idiot. She's still too young for that."

The other twin sighed dramatically as he threw his hands into the air from his spot on his bed.

"Well, sorry." he replied sarcastically, "How am I supposed to know that?"

"Maybe you should actually take mom up on her medic training offers." Tomiko shot back, "For a genius, you are pretty dumb in some areas."

The boy dodged the pillow his brother threw at him and shot him a dirty look.

"No interest in medical ninjutsu, you know that. You and sis can do that. I wanna be trained to use the ninjutsu like dad!"

Tomiko just rolled his eyes at his brother as he refocused on their previous conversation.

"She only gets sad when her class does any shinobi training."

"You still think it's that? Not the idea that she might have a crush like last time?"

"Well, don't you? She's constantly training in her room or in the backyard. That proves she doesn't have a crush. She makes herself too busy. She likes training with mom and dad, but she gets in that sour mood whenever they have to cover that stuff in class."

Tomiko picked up the pillow his brother had thrown earlier and tossed it back to him as Kyouzou thought over his reasoning.

"Why don't we just ask her?"

"There's no way she'd tell us anything."

"Well, not both of us. One of us should go." Kyouzou explained his idea, "It should be you though. Use the excuse that you have a question about a jutsu mom told you about or something. She gets mad when I go into her room."

Tomiko stood and shot his brother an unamused look as he walked past the beds and towards the door.

"That's because you always try to put traps and pranks in her room, you dunce."

He heard Kyouzou laugh as he closed the door behind him and walked down the hall to their sisters room. Between the twins, Kyouzou was the lazier of the two. He loved avoiding responsibility and often would be found laying in his bed, on the couch, or in the hammack in the backyard. But, he was strong. Kyouzou had a natural affinity to learn ninjutsu and his chakra control was perfect.

Tomiko on the other hand was the more reserved of the two. He hated ignoring problems and wanted to help and be useful whenever he could. He often spent his free time studying the medical texts his mother offered and training with her and his sister. He had perfect chakra control too, but he put his skills solely towards medical ninjutsu over the ninjutsu styles his father and brother used.

The green eyed boy knocked on his sister's door in hopes that she'd had already returned before he opened it up and poked his head inside.

"You busy?" he commented with a smirk as he found Miyu in the middle of her room doing calisthenic training.

Miyu opened her eyes and peeked over at her little brother from her spot. Never breaking her position as she remained in the one handed handstand.

"Not really, what's up?" she replied and used her free hand to motion around the room, "Make yourself at home."

She watched Tomiko smile as he walked in the rest of the way and flopped down onto her bed.

"I think I decided that I want to try and get the Byakugou seal." he suddenly spoke seriously.

The pinkette jerked her head towards him as she gracefully dismounted from her handstand and turned to face him fully.

"Yeah?" she smiled down to him as she sat on the edge of the bed and leaned back with her hands supporting her, "Have you told mom?"

The silver haired boy just shook his head.

"Not yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first since you started the process yourself recently."

Miyu nodded at his explanation and pondered her response. She liked talking shop with Tomiko. He was fully invested in becoming a top tier medic like their mother while Kyouzou aimed to be like their dad. Miyu was interested in both sides and was aiming to be skilled in both facets.

"Well, mom told me she didn't start obtaining it until she was almost fourteen and it didn't form until she was seventeen during the Fourth War. She said she was rather impatient and put over seventy five percent of her chakra towards it everyday during that time."

She smiled bigger at how Tomiko gawked at this news.

"That much?" he whispered in disbelief, "I wonder how she became so strong using only like twenty five percent of her chakra. That's awesome!"

Miyu just nodded with a sly smile.

"Since I'm only nine, mom won't allow me put that much towards it. She said it's dangerous enough as it is that I'm starting so young. So I can only put five percent of my chakra reserves towards it a day. She said I can put more as I get older and get more training and a larger reserve built up."

"Is that why you've been training so much recently?"

She paused for a second as she stared at him.

'Yes, but no.' she idly thought.

"Kinda of." she admitted, "I just want to get strong."

There was a quiet pause between the two for a while as her statement lingered.

"But you're already strong? Like really strong."

Miyu sighed wistfully as she pushed herself off her bed and turned to face her lounging brother.

"Not strong enough for my liking. I don't have perfect chakra control like you and dingus. I need to keep working hard to control it more if I want to start taijutsu training with mom and granny Tsunade and increase my input for the seal next year. Plus, it needs to be honed so I can learn ninjutsu from dad better."

Tomiko twisted his face at her reasoning.

"But you've proved you can do all that."

"It shouldn't take me so long to get the basics of a jutsu down! Dad said he learned them easily and mom learned them easily too because of her natural chakra control. You and Kyouzou have already proved you have those skills and you guys are two years younger than me! I'm falling behind… I just need to get stronger in every aspect of training. I have to catch up."

Her little brother sat then and gave her a hard look.

"Is that why you've been so sad lately?"

Miyu stopped and blinked at his question.

"I've been sad?" she asked back, "What makes you say that?"

Tomiko stood and faced her head on with his brow furrowed and narrowed his green eyes.

"Because I can see it. So can Kyouzou. We noticed you've been more sad lately."

"I'm not sad. Everythings fine." she shot back as she crossed her arms and matched his scolding look.

The twin called her bluff as he shook his head and stepped past her towards the door.

"You're a horrible liar. You were just saying how you need to work hard because you feel you're behind!" he bit out, "You're not behind though. You're freaking amazing, sis. But, you're aiming for perfection in everything you do though… You're not perfect, none of us are, and you can't obtain perfection overnight. Mess up a little, okay? Stop comparing yourself. Because you are your own person and have your own special skill that no one else has! Not me, or Kyouzou or dad, or even mom!"

Miyu bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from lashing out or crying. Was she that easy to read? Her brothers had noticed so easily, did her parents? Obviously not. Had anyone else noticed? The siblings stood in a tense silent for a while as she thought of what to say and decided to tell him the truth.

"I'm not comparing myself. I'm tired of others comparing me to mom and dad."

Tomiko stared at her with wide eyes at the intense comment.

"I just want to be recognized for my skills. For how hard I have worked for them." she continued as she shoved a thumb into her chest, "I'm tired of everyone saying I can do this or that because I have Hatake and Haruno blood in my veins."

A/N: Hi! Long time no see. Sorry this sequel doesn't get consistent updates like my other current stories, Unity Without Sin or You Never Stay. With this story I'm taking my sweet time with because I don't want it to be a dud and I want to make sure I'm conveying these characters, my OC's, how I have imagined them from the moment of conception (no pun intended eehehe) back when I was writing the As If Fate Would Have It.

This is a flashback chapter basically. Back to "when it all started" with some of Miyu's feelings. It ties into to other things later in the story, so don't fret my friends. Also, no, Miyu does not hate her parents. She just doesn't want to ride coat tails. Chapter 3 will be back to the present, so our story shall progress.

Please leave reviews if you can! I love hearing from you guys and I hope you're all enjoying this sequel to my first baby.