My third birthday celebration, if it could be called that, had left an ugly scar on my mind. How could this have happened? How could my idyllic life be shattered so handily? How could Father, whom I had always regarded as a part of my lovely little capsule of a family, possibly be this cruel?

And for a single moment, I could see how the Hyuuga family believed so heavily in destiny.

How could this be the result of anything other than cruel fate? How could Father, who had always been so kind, be so callous and uncaring? How else but a cold hand of destiny guiding him, shoving him into his fate? He was of the Main House, and thus it was his destiny to do so.

My eyes and mind hardened as I pondered. I would reject my own fate, my own predetermined reality.

To hell with tradition, I decided. To hell with fate.

I was the clan heir. When I became clan head, I would deconstruct this dysfunctional clan and rebuild from the ground up. The Main and Branch House system was fundamentally broken, and I would seek to rectify that.

I would need strength, I decided. No one would listen to a weak heir, especially on a matter so ingrained as the cursed seal of the Hyuuga. Hinata, in canon, was cast aside as the heir due to a lack of strength. I would need to ensure that the same would not happen to me.

Strength, power, and unshakeable conviction were what I needed to reform this clan.

And so I spent every moment that I could training and hardening myself for my eventual role within the Hyuuga Clan. No longer could I sit and be a passive child. No longer could I soak in the gentle simple joy of my infancy, sitting in Mother's garden. I needed urgently to grow up and do so quickly.

I had been assigned a private tutor by Father for the purpose of grooming me to be a competent heir when the time came.

Hyuuga Hanada was my new teacher. She was a member of the Main House, I could tell from her uncovered and unmarked forehead, and it showed in the dignified way that she carried herself and dressed. Traditional robes and such.

Hanada, my teacher, had been shocked at the degree to which I threw myself into my training. And we sparred very often. Not because the curriculum that she had developed demanded it, because it was mostly just conditioning work, but because I had demanded it in an effort to develop faster and Hiashi had wholeheartedly endorsed my efforts.

It was there, in the courtyard of my house in the Hyuuga Clan compound, that I received many a bruise and scrape from the woman, who reluctantly indulged my demands.

"Pectoralis major, triceps brachii, and every other muscle. Pay attention and use your Byakugan, Haruka. Anticipate my strikes."

I developed, in a semi-delirious state of mind after fights with Hanada that left my head pounding and my muscles screaming, a decidedly strange way of thinking of combat.

Fighting was an argument between combatants, only physical rather than verbal. Arguments were crafted, counterarguments were made, and eventually, the loser's philosophy and argument would buckle under that of the victor's.

Hanada sent a jab my way, just slow enough that I could judge it and act appropriately.

Opening argument.

I ducked under her strike, her arm whooshing above my head, hit successfully evaded.

Defensive.

I coated my hand with what little chakra I could muster and sent my hand towards her. A textbook, if rather slow, execution of the Hyuuga's Gentle Fist taijutsu style.

And rebuttal.

Hanada seized my wrist, avoiding the chakra coating the tips of my fingers, pulled my arm hard enough that I thought that it may dislocate, swung my body overhead, and then slammed me into the ground.

I lay there, groaning.

Counterargument.

"Put more chakra into your hands. You have to have better control," Hanada said, "You need to move faster, too. Don't flex out with your wrist so much."

Hanada stood above me, nonchalantly. She put her hands in her pockets, and gazed at me, her Byakugan not even active. She was completely unharmed and undirtied from the fight, and her face was serene and blank.

I, on the other hand, probably looked like a mess. I could feel the warm and sticky blood running down my face, and my lips and teeth were pulled back in an ugly sneer of frustration and determination, which I quickly pulled back in an attempt to school my facial expression.

I planted my hands firmly on the dirt and pushed myself up to face her once more.

Much of the day proceeded in this way, with me charging at her with my crude Gentle Fist techniques in a constant effort to improve and refine them.

When, inevitably, I grew too fatigued to continue fighting, I retired to the Hyuuga library and studied. History, politics, mathematics, chakra theory, anything that was of even vague importance was soaked in by my brain like a particularly parched sponge.

Progress.

I was the model Hyuuga child, the most competent clan heir that could have been asked for. I was quiet, studious, polite, motivated, and I progressed apparently rather quickly in all fields required of me. Even from his rather limited number of facial expressions, I could tell that Father was proud.

By the time I was six, I was practically the poster boy of the Hyuuga Clan, the result of years of pain and hard work motivated by horror and ambition from a transposed brain.

The skill I possessed with the clan dojutsu was unprecedented at my age. The sheer degree to which I absorbed knowledge, thanks in large part to my already developed and highly motivated brain, was astounding. And I was progressing very nicely in the Gentle Fist.

And so I rose in the eyes of my clansmen. I was a powerful heir, a strong new leader to head to clan with conviction and guide the clan to its next stage of brilliance.

This elevated reputation only made it all the more outrageous, and thus sweeter when I committed my first act of insubordination.

It was a small thing, really.

I cut my hair.

It was a long-held tradition of the Hyuuga to keep the hair long and straight and immaculate, regardless of gender. It wasn't a tradition held by everyone in the clan, as in the modern era, long hair, particularly for men, had fallen somewhat out of fashion. Long hair also wasn't particularly practical in combat, giving enemies an easy handhold.

But the heir to the Hyuuga Clan was expected to maintain and uphold all traditions and be absolute in them.

My hair, as opposed to the bone-straight waist length thing that was expected of me, became a nest of choppy purple ribbons that cascaded down my neck, almost similar to what I remembered Madara's own funky haircut to be, only a fair bit shorter.

Father had denounced my new look, while Mother, ever the lenient one, had pacified him and convinced him to allow it, believing me to be going through a phase of some sort. To be fair, I sort of was.

Thinking back to it, the act of small rebellion had been rather pointless. The clan (mostly of the Main House) had been outraged and for little gain on my part. What had the haircut done, really?

Perhaps I had regressed mentally along with my physical body. It was rather immature of me.

Still, I had spit in the face of tradition, and that was all that I needed, along with my personal growth, to feel satisfied that I was progressing, however slowly, to my goals. I was different, distinctly so.

The hair was simply a visual marker. It was a small action, the first stepping stone.

For there would be more to come in the future. With me as the clan head, the Hyuuga would know and feel profound change.