Work Text:
She has tiny child hands with tiny child fingers adorned with tiny child fingernails. The tiny child fingernails are painted with slightly chipped nail polish. It's red, because Ino picked it out ("Red's your color," Ino will have told her) but it will be mostly gone in a couple of days because civilian nail polish can't even hold up to basic academy training. These hands are weak hands, because they belong to a young girl of no notable heritage who's expected to be a career genin analyst in the Tower at the very best and a bitter academy washout at the very worst.
But these hands are also strong hands, because they belong to Haruno Sakura, and Haruno Sakura is going to be amazing.
Sakura hadn't known she was going to be amazing yesterday, of course, but she's seven years old — she learns new things every day. Looking in the mirror one morning and realizing she's going to be awesome and badass and get a cool mentor isn't that much different from staring down at her homework and suddenly realizing she actually understands the math problems she's been given before she even reads all of the instructions.
Her small hands fumble to tie a simple knot in her red ribbon. Her hair falls an inch past her shoulders, soft and shiny. It's beautiful, but it's not very practical — especially since she always wears it loose behind the ribbon.
She's missed her hair being like this...but she's also always had it like this. Sakura frowns at her reflection in the mirror hung on the back of her door and flexes her tiny chakra core. Nothing changes, so she shrugs and continues with her preparations: books, homework, bag, a jacket in case she gets cold, and then downstairs to get lunch from her mother.
On her way to the academy, she realizes two things:
First, Iruka hasn't taught them to break genjutsu yet. There are a couple of kids in Sakura's class who can probably already do it — Sasuke-kun for sure — but Iruka had been clear that the only chakra manipulation they'd do that year was yet more practice with the leaf-sticking technique. Disrupting genjutsu is the kind of thing you learn in the last year of the academy, when they're almost sure you won't completely wash out of the general forces.
Second, Sakura walks past a sour-faced Konoha Military Police officer and does a double-take. That KMP officer should be dead, she thinks,and flexes her chakra again, this time with the sharp twist Kurenai-sensei will have always recommended.
This is very confusing, and very awful, and to make matters worse the KMP officer flicks her eyes at Sakura. "What," demands the officer, squinting at Sakura suspiciously.
Sakura looks down, intimidated and nervous. She's going to be totally awesome, but this police officer doesn't know that and Sakura can't afford to get in trouble or draw attention to herself. "Um, nothing," she mumbles, feeling her face heat with embarrassment. "Sorry."
She darts off down the street, careening through the crowds, and arrives at the academy gates completely winded, which is at least a good excuse for her racing heart.
Ino is there, waiting for her, and Ino is tiny just like she is. "Jeez," Ino says, "you're still fifteen minutes early, Sakura, calm down. C'mon, let's go grab our seats." She waves a hand towards class. Her nails are purple, and they're not chipped — she's probably reapplied her nail polish since she and Sakura had their sleepover over the weekend.
They sit together in class. They eat lunch together and talk about the group project Iruka-sensei just gave them. It's nice.
In the afternoon, Iruka takes them all out to the Academy training fields.
They do stretches. Sakura competes with Ino to complete the most impressive, widest stretches they can without Iruka yelling at them for risking injury. They laugh and giggle. Her hair gets in her face.
They have to jog around the field. Sakura pumps her tiny legs and paces herself, running next to Ino but feeling that they should both be going much, much faster. There are boys running in front of them — Kiba and Sasuke and others, their backs pulling away while Sakura is already starting to feel a stitch in her side. Her hair gets in her face.
Then they have to do push ups — her hair gets in her face. Lunges — her hair gets in her face. The first Academy basic kata set — her hair gets in her face. By the time they reach the kunai-throwing section of the afternoon, Sakura is looking down at her practice set of kunai and thinking about chopping her beautiful, soft pink hair off. How did she even live like this? Why should she do it again?
"I could braid it for you," Ino says out of the blue.When Sakura looks, she has a hair tie pinched between her thumb and finger, waving it in Sakura's direction.
Sakura smiles and stands still while Ino finger-combs her hair, careful not to pull it, and braids it into a low tail. Sakura can feel it laying between her shoulder blades, against her spine, when she later steps into the academy sparring ring.
Across the ring is a boy named Daiki. He makes the seal of confrontation and so does Sakura. Iruka calls the start of the fight.
It's a plain fact that Sakura's never won a fight before. The teachers deliberately try to match them up to challenge them, and they haven't been sparring long enough for Sakura to be on the top of that equation. Daiki is the son of two civilian parents and started training at the same time and in the same way as Sakura, but by virtue of being an outgoing boy has been pushed towards a more confident, expressive style.
When he lunges forward, he should really be able to punch Sakura's arm, and then take advantage of the way she flinches and panics to grab her, flip her to the ground and wrestle her to the ground easily. Grappling is seven-year-old Sakura's worst physical skill (and that's saying something) so it's a foregone conclusion. Even Sakura knows that, when she lowers the seal of confrontation and tries to get ready. She can already taste the dirt in her mouth. She can already feel the weight of Daiki on her back, pinning her while their classmates chatter excitedly.
Then Daiki moves forward and throws his punch and Sakura...Sakura throws her shoulder back. She pivots to the side and cocks her arm back in the same motion. Then, while Daiki is still in his overextended punch, she rockets her fist forward and breaks his nose.
When they make the seal of reconciliation, Daiki can't look at her because he has to keep his head tilted up and his free hand involved with trying to stem the blood flowing from his nose. "That was so cool," Daiki tells her, instead of being mad, a sentiment that Ino and Kiba echo when Sakura makes her way back into the crowd.
Haruno Sakura has tiny hands, these days, but maybe she doesn't have to wait to be amazing.