Chapter Text
She was five and they were laughing. They jeered and pointed and tears welled in her eyes. She brushed her hair in front of her forehead - too big too much too visible - and walked home over broken glass and worn cobblestone.
Ah, Sakura-chan, something in the back of her mind whispered, dark and menacing and scary, don’t listen to them.
Sakura shook her head. She wouldn’t, she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t.
-
A girl with long blonde hair took her hand and wouldn’t let go. She smiled a happy smile with straight teeth and bright eyes, and Sakura smiled back, her teeth sharp and her eyes sharper.
Father didn’t ask if Sakura wanted to be a shinobi. Father sat with her at dinner and set the liability form on the table, signed, and said: “You start Monday.”
Good.
It was loud and there were too many colors, and children brawled and bared their (dull) teeth, and older siblings and parents looked on them with nostalgia and amusement and everything that made Sakura’s skin crawl.
(Father never walked her to the Academy. Sakura was glad.)
Ino was a steady presence beside her. Firm, unyielding. Warm. Ino’s father sometimes looked at Sakura, in a way where he could see straight through her, but then he looked away and she didn’t know what he had seen but she knew that she had been dismissed.
He’ll learn, Voice said softly, patiently, waiting. Don’t worry, sweet girl. He’ll learn.
Ino smiled. Sakura bared her teeth, wrinkled her eyes, curled her lips.
-
She climbed the trees until bark splintered her palms. The smell of green was fresh and the cool of the shade was especially nice on hot days, when the sun beat down on the ground and they had no water or crops because that was for the Clans and they had to fend for themselves. Sakura climbed the trees and watched the squirrels and the birds and the bugs, and if sometimes she brought some home, Father stayed quiet.
He didn’t like her much, but he knew to stay away.
She slept in the trees, too, when her bed was too soft and her house was too loud. She watched the stars that were covered by clouds and listened as Voice whispered to her stories of long-forgotten goddesses and beginnings and ends.
She believed Voice more than she believed the Academy, because the Academy looked at her oddly and told her to go play, that questions could wait, that she was still young and didn’t need to worry about these things.
Voice asked her, What else?, and expected her to understand.
-
Sakura heard their whispers of odd child and strange and suspicious and something wrong with, and Voice told her to look at Sasuke, to speak fast and high, to watch the world with Ino’s and Ami’s eyes, to be bright and bubbly and young.
With the sun, Sakura was a flower, soft, fragile, thin, something to be protected, but also so like the others that she didn’t really matter.
With the moon, Sakura climbed the trees and watched the squirrels and smiled.
Sometimes Voice spoke to her in class, and she would listen to it instead of them. “The mission is most important,” said the Academy. “Emotions are a liability. Shinobi Rule Four - write this down - don’t show emotions. Shinobi do not laugh, they do not sing, they do not frown, they do not cry.”
No, Voice said, light and humorous. Take the bubbling in your chest, the fire in your veins, the anger in your heart and the pain in your soul. Take it and use it in every action, every blow. Use it in every word.
And let it control me? asked Sakura. Voice laughed.
Silly girl. It already controls you.
-
The kunai felt cold and heavy and wrong in her hand. Her fingers twitched. She didn’t like the weight, or the dullness, or the bulky fit in her small palm. They watched over her shoulder as she missed the target.
Again, they said.
She picked up the kunai. She threw. She missed.
“Again.”
Kneel. Stand. Throw. Miss.
“Again.”
Kneel. Stand. Throw. Miss.
“Again.”
Kneel. Stand. Throw. Miss.
“Five laps, Haruno.”
Sakura ran. Her nails bit into her palm.
“Again,” they said, and the next time she missed, and picked up the kunai, it was patterned with crescent-shaped marks of blood.
“Again,” they said, and Sakura’s heart was rising and her lungs were getting smaller and with Voice murmuring quietly, she didn’t kneel, and she let go her anger and her impatience and the bitterness forming in her chest, and the kunai hit.
It wasn’t in the center of the target, but it was an inch deep.
Sakura bared her teeth as they told her to run again.
-
She was growing and changing and everything was morphing into something more mature but also more childish.
Ino watched Sasuke from a distance, longing in her eyes, even as he sat in the corner in dark clothing with a dark face and a darker gaze because his family was dead and they weren’t allowed to talk about it.
Naruto was louder and brighter and more abrasive and he pushed and pushed until someone reacted.
Shikamaru and Kiba and Hinata and Shino and Choji were quiet, Clan Children at their finest.
-
Sakura loosened the area under her eyes and lifted the corners of her lips and rested her cheek on her palm and sighed softly and watched Sasuke.
More carefully, Sakura watched Ino do the same.
Good, Voice said. Your back is too straight and your shoulders are too tight. The language of the human body, Sakura-chan.
The Academy skimmed over infiltration and honeypot missions.
Sakura was a flower.
-
She was in the trees and an ANBU team rushed by her and one shinobi stopped to give her an odd look.
“Go home,” they said, dull and monotone. “This is no place for children at night.”
“Yes, shinobi-san,” Sakura said, lips curled, eyes gleaming. The ANBU nodded once. Walked away.
Sakura stayed, but watched curiously as they disappeared into the shadows.
She’d heard about them, but only in whispers and cautious glances into the dark.
Celebrated nightmares but considered nightmares nonetheless, said Voice, amused. Watch. You’ll be celebrated and no one will know your nightmare.
No one knows me now, Sakura thought, looking at the stars.
A civilian kunoichi rising through the ranks: hopeless, mediocre, passable, beyond, celebrated.