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In a large room, a little girl sat on a stool. Her hair was pink, and her eyes were green, and she was dressed in a pretty yellow dress.
She stared into her vanity table mirror, her face scrunched up in thought. There was no reason for this – she was only five, and didn't wear makeup. Her attendant had already brushed her hair and dressed her in her clothes. Still, she sat, her blank eyes staring into themselves.
“My name is...” She frowned, a light coming into her eyes. Like a drowning victim desperately trying to come up for air, that little piece of self struggled to make itself known. “My name is...”
Your name is Sakura
Sakura looked at her reflection, glassy eyed. Like someone had flipped a switch, the change that had almost been disappeared. “My name is S.” She scolded herself.
There came a knock on the wooden door, and it creaked open. “S-chan, it is time for breakfast. H-sama is waiting for you in the dining room.” A man dressed in a blue tunic and white vest stepped into the room. Beneath the white bandages wrapped around the lower half of his face she could tell he was smiling, and she smiled back in turn.
“Than' you Dosu-san. I am ready to be taken to brea'fast now. I hope I did not make you wait?” She slipped from the stool, going to stand by the man. He offered his hand to her, and she took it, slipping her soft hand into his calloused one. He led them both from the room, into a long white hallway. They walked for a few minutes, passing a large wooden door much like S's own.
This was H-sama's room. S knew this because she often visited H-sama's room, spending her time there whenever it was permitted. If it wasn't for H-sama, S would be alone.
Passing her room, they walked for several more minutes, until the hallway ended in a large door. Two shinobi, dressed nearly identically to Dosu stood guard. As they approached the ninja opened the door for them, nodding at both Dosu and S. “Hewo!” She said, waving to them.
They smiled back at her. “Have a good day, miss,” one of them said.
Dosu led her through the door, into the dining room.
Abruptly the wooden floors of the hall changed to black veined white marble, and the golden, flickering torchlight of the hallway to sunlight. Picture windows made up one wall and most of the domed roof, letting in the thin, white-washed mountain sunlight. Overtaking most of the large room was a long wooden dining table. At parties it would likely be a magnificent sight, but now it was empty but for three table settings and a small collection of dishes at the far end. H-sama was already sitting at her spot to the right of the head of the table, patiently waiting for S to arrive.
S pulled her hand free of Dosu's grip, darting through the room and scrambling onto the cushioned chair. “Hewo H-sama!” She chimed, smiling broadly. For the first few weeks she had lived in their home both S and H had been to shy to approach the other, neither able to take the first step and talk to the other. It was only after the third day of their classes together, when the sensei had them work on a joint project, that the girls had finally been able to connect. Being the only two people under the age of twenty in the building, they soon became attached at the hip.
“H-hi, S-chan. The food dis mo-morning looks de-dewi-dewicous.” H smiled sweetly at her, her heavy fringe hiding her pearlescent purple eyes. “D-do you t'ink Sensei h-has somethi-thing in-in-intewesting to teach us today?” Two servants stepped up behind them and began filling their plates with food. The platters were mostly for show, as their meals, including the portions they were allowed, were entirely dictated by their doctor.
Todays breakfast was a bowl of oatmeal served with fresh fruit and honey, a side of bacon and half a muffin, served with cold glasses of orange juice. It was all delicious and made fresh just for them, like every morning. S started to steadily work her way through the bacon, while H made headway on her oatmeal. “I do not know, H-sama. We finished wif' da chakwa pathways last time, but he never said what we would be dowing today.” She tilted her head to the left in thought, half a piece of bacon sticking out of her mouth. She swallowed, “Maybe jutsu theorwy? That thounds like fun.”
H bobbed her head in agreement. Scraping the bowl for the last of her oatmeal, she moved on to eating her bacon. “Do you t'ink w-we have time to go to da librwa-librwawy?” They'd only just grasped the basics of reading, and most of their time spent in the library was having one of the ninja that was always present there explaining the kanji in their books, but it was fun.
A ninja, his only differentiating feature from every other one they had met in their time there his sheer size and the dark glasses shielding his eyes, stepped in through the doors nearest the two girls. “Good morning, students,” the man said, coming to stand attention at the head of the table.
“Good morning sensei,” they chimed. Pushing away from the tables, the children slipped from their chairs to stand at attention before the man.
The stern looking man nodded once, sharply. “Your schedule for today is as usual. Class with Ugumi-sensei from nine to twelve, then a brief break for luncheon with your father. After, you will have two hours of physical education with K-sensei, followed by your usual etiquette lessons with Madame Lin. Later you will spend several hours observing the workings of the village, to familiarize yourselves with the practical side of the theory of running a village that you have been working on for several days. Then you will take dinner in the main Dining Hall, and after you will proceed to the library to practice your reading.”
Glancing at each other, the two girls smiled. They'd been working on the theory of running a Hidden Village for almost a week, and they were tired of learning the same thing over and over again. Even if they were only going to see the parts they'd studied in class, it was better than spending all of their time in the house. They were going to go into the village!
“Yes, sensei.” They followed obediently as the man turned sharply on his heel and walked out the same door he came in, with H exactly two feet behind him and S just barely a step behind her. They continued on walking through the house, until the white washed walls faded away to brick, and brick to paper screens. Finally, they came to stop before a plain door. S and H kneeled before it, waiting to be called inside.
Their sensei's voice, low and dry and loud, echoed in the narrow hall. “Yo, brats! Come in already!” And the two scrambled over each other to get into the classroom.
Just another day in the life of the daughters of the Raikage.
- -
A man in a black coat stood in front of a chair. He had hair the color of sunlight and skin like loamy earth, and his eyes were dark as pits. He paced, feet splashing through an errant puddle of indistinguishable origin. “To whom do you owe your loyalty to?” He asked. His voice was not unlike the sound of two stones crashing together, grinding them both into gravel.
“My name,” the shadow in the chair snarled, “is -”
The crack of flesh hitting flesh echoed in the dark room. “Again. We will repeat doing this until I have decided you are permissible in public. Until your attitude has improved, you will stay here. Is this understood?”
A high, barking laugh, and then, “My parents are -” There was the thump of a fist pushing into yielding stomach, breath whistling out through clenched teeth, the sound of retching and the wet spatter of bile hitting the floor.
“Well, it seems as though you are not so compliant today. Very well.” He turned sharp on his heels, coat flapping behind, and left. “Don't feed her for a week,” he shot behind him, “We'll see if that softens her up.”
And then the only sound in the room was the sound of broken sobs.
“My home is ...My home is...”
- -
CH2
Ugumi-sensei was a slave driver of a teacher. He was tall and thin, bones laced with tight, worn looking muscles. At best, he could have been called 'scrappy'. A lifetime of heavy smoking had left him with a ruined voice and not much else, giving it a dry, broken kind of depth.
He demanded nothing but perfection from his two students. “Again!” He rasped as the pink one finished her line of kanji. He hadn't bothered to learn this batch's names; no doubt the Raikage would find fault in one or both of them, and all he would be left to teach would be a pair of corpses. These would not be the first children his leader had attempted to adopt, though they were, seemingly, the most useful. “Your second line was crooked, and the third from the last is wrong. Do it again.” His previous students – two blondes, a few brunettes, a redhead or two, and those were just the ones he had bothered to remember – would likely have thrown up a fuss. This was the third (fourth?) time he had made her repeat the form.
She just nodded, erased her efforts, and began again.
The blue one was sitting at her tatami mat, hunched over a piece of rice paper with a brush in her hand. She'd finished the form on the board already, and was now in the process of practicing her brush work. She was a smart one, just like pinky, but her stutter would have to go if she wished to live through the New Year. As of right now, the Raikage thought it was 'cute', but Ugumi doubted the sentiment would last very long. Best to train it out of her while she still had the breath in her lungs to talk.
The pink one had finished the poem again, sitting with perfect posture next to it. Ugumi scrutinized it, picking it apart for any mistakes made. “Better,” he said finally. “Once more should suffice, and then, if there are no mistakes present, you may move on to brushwork with your classmate.” She nodded, erased her work – which was, despite his words, perfect – and began again.
He moved to stare over the blind-looking one's shoulder. “Passable. Do it again.”
Why, he did not let himself wonder, were these two different?
- -
After calligraphy lessons, which went on for only a short half-hour, there was geography, where they learned the where's and why's and who’s of the other countries, and then there was learning how to run a village or a clan, including finances and budgeting, before ending off the day with twenty minutes of music or fine arts.
S was very talented at her beloved seventeen string zither, and H was quite possibly the finest watercolor painter Ugumi'd taught. They would both be handed off to true masters soon enough, if they continued on with the level of skill they were showing. That was rather unexpected, as none of the others before had been able to move past the basics in either art. They simply hadn't the mind for them.
Their minds were very similar for two children whom, previous to their adoption by the Raikage, had never met the other. Curious, but not so much that Ugumi would question it. No one questioned the Raikage, and where he procured his charges was none of the tutor's business anyways.
He handed them quietly off to their Combat teacher, neither hands nor eyes lingering upon their retreating forms though he knew well the pain they were about to face. For the first few children, he might have. He vaguely remembered the arguments between them, his hands on the little girls’ shoulders, voice raised despite the damage done to his throat.
It’s a distant memory. Instead he sat at his desk and inspected their classwork, mapping out in his head the next day’s lesson plan.
He had long since learned not to make connections with those living on borrowed time.
- -
Night has fallen over the Village Hidden in the Clouds, and S’s home was quiet. She was awake by the grace of the bruises lining her arms, a dark blush on her skin, the pain keeping her aware long past her bedtime.
In the next room she could hear H-sama shifting in her own bed. S crawled off the bed, padding across the carpeted floor to settle on her knees facing their shared wall. She knocked softly on the wall, listening closely to hear H-sama roll off her own bed and tap back.
Tap-tappity tap tap, goes the wall. S smiled.
“Hi,” she whispered to the dark. The wood felt strange under her fingertips. She traced the grain with the tips of her nails. “You awake?”
“Y-yes,” H-sama whispered back, voice muffled but audible. “I can’t sleep. I keep think-thinking about wh-what we’re g-going t-t-to do when we join-join the Academy.” Her voice was tense with fear. S knows that she’s really, truly terrified because H-sama had nearly stopped stuttering at all in the half a year since they were adopted by the Raikage. Now she only does it when she’s afraid, or embarrassed, or when she messes something up.
S frowned, and shifted so she was laying along the wall with her arms crossed under her head. “I don’t think we really have anything to be afraid of. No one would ever mess with the Raikage’s kids, you know? They’ll have to respect us, because we’re gonna be the best ninja-in-training there!” She pumped her arm into the air, smiling brightly.
H-sama laughed, a high, light giggle. “Ah, Sakura, re-remember what Dango-sensei said?” S can almost see H-sama’s face twist up as she imitates their sensei, “‘There is always someone stronger than you, brat, and smarter, and more talented. The only thing you lot will ever have going for you is your will to survive. Remember that!’”