Chapter Text
Sakura is four years old with big, green eyes and an innocently curious nature. She is four years old and not yet tainted by the cruelty of the world they live in, still a small child and not the ruthless soldier she’ll grow up to be. She is four years old when she first hears the word “soulmate” and wonders how such an amazing thing can exist.
And when she asks, her Oto-san scoops her up into his arms with a charming smile and twinkling blue eyes. “Soulmates are people who’ll love you no matter what, who you’re destined to spend the rest of your life with,” he answers with a cheerful laugh, nuzzling her cheek with the fuzz of his pink beard until Sakura bursts into fits of giggles, trying to lean back to escape the ticklish feeling. “They’re made just for you — only you — and will never leave you.”
(Later, Sakura will realize how much her father was lying; while soulmates might be an amazing phenomenal to most, it can also tear apart the lives of others, too.)
But Sakura is four years old with wide, innocent eyes and hangs onto her dad’s words and hopes.
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Sakura is five years old and is determined to become a shinobi. She wakes up at the crack of dawn everyday, when the sky is orange and pink and the sun is childishly peeking a bit over the tall wall surrounding Konoha. It’s then when she watches older shinobi in masks leap from building to building, their moves graceful and not once faltering. She can feel the power radiating off their figures as they dance away under the splatter of warm colors of the sunrise, silently making their rounds around Konoha.
It’s breakfast when she decides to tell her parents about her decision.
“I’m going to be a shinobi,” she says. Not I want, but I am — she had never been more serious in her life.
Okaa-san instantly drops her chopsticks on her plate, making a clattering sound that has Sakura reeling backwards, cringing at the loud, abrupt noise. Oto-san is mid-bite in his rice, blue eyes impossibly wide and staring at Sakura like she’s just yanked his world from under his feet.
She smiles with a blinding grin aimed at them.
(It’s that one sentence that starts to the cracks in their family.)
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Sakura is five and a half years old when she passes the Academy exam with flying colors despite the cold shush in her home now.
(Okaa-san grows distant and stares at Sakura as if she doesn’t know who her child is anymore. She grows cold.)
(Oto-san goes out late and returns even later, stumbling and foul smelling. He can’t look at her anymore.)
(Sakura doesn’t understand any of it. She thinks their love is falling away.)
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Sakura is six years old and wakes at the crack of dawn as the sun filters its warm colors around her room.
Sakura is six years old and wakes up to bright words littered along her arms and gasps in excitement, joy thrumming through her veins. Bright orange and navy blue and steel grey. Words that belong to her as they talk to each other, conversations written along her skin that marked her as theirs and them as hers.
Her soulmates.
Most have one. Only a couple are reported to have two. Sakura is gifted with three.
Three is unheard of.
It must be a blessing.
(It is not a blessing.)
(It is a curse.)
“Okaa-san! Okaa-san, look!” Sakura cheers, bounding down the stairs and practically shoving her arm under her mother’s nose. More words spread along her right arm before they run out of space and they move to her left and Sakura switches, throwing both arms out in front of her as Okaa-san reels back, startled. “I have soulmates! Isn’t this amazing?”
Sakura peers up, having to force her eyes away from the colors and words and looks to her Okaa-san, smile stretched so wide along her face it shows all of her teeth.
But Okaa-san only frowns, eyes scanning her daughter’s arm before roughly sighing, dragging a hand down her face, expression turning pinched and disappointed.
(Disgusted.)
“Your Oto-san and I will be having a talk,” Okaa-san grits out, nostrils flaring in anger.
(She’s so cold and she’s distant and Sakura wonders if she even has a Okaa-san anymore because—)
Okaa-san glares down at her and Sakura swallows back a tingling nervousness that pricks along her skin.
(Okaa-san feels different now. She feels of ice and her chakra tastes like something sour and disappointment.)
Sakura lets her head drop, eyes casting down to stare at her feet. She pulls at her short sleeves and wishes they covered her arms, previous joy drained and gone.
(Okaa-san can’t stop staring at her words and it’s scary because this doesn’t feel right, doesn’t feel like comfort but of danger—)
(Sakura wonders when she stopped finding safety with Okaa-san.)
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Oto-san roughly grips her wrist, large fingers dwarfing her hand as his eyes trace over the words along her skin, letters printing along her arms — the previous words had faded after being wiped away and the conversation drifted.
Oto-san gives a glance towards Okaa-san and she gives a firm nod that makes the muscles in his jaw clench before he looks back at her, eyes burning.
(Okaa-san’s eyes are cold but Oto-san’s is like a fire, burning everything it touches and Sakura wonders how long she can survive the raging flames.)
“You won’t talk to them,” Oto-san finally says — firm and final. “You won’t respond, you won’t do anything no matter what. You are clanless.” Worthless. “You are a child pretending to be a shinobi in training.” Useless. “Your soulmates won’t want you — there has never been reports of people having four soulmates. For now on, you’re not their soulmate. You have no soulmates. Is that understood?”
Sakura bites back the automatic “They’re mine! I’m theirs!” and nods silently. Her nails bite into her palms and she shudders, curling into herself when Oto-san stands.
“I’m glad we’ve come to an agreement,” he says pleasantly.
You have no soulmates.
(Sakura wonders when she started fearing Oto-san.)
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(Later, Sakura will wonder when her family fell apart.)
(Later, Sakura will know that some things are better left broken.)
(Later, Sakura will wonder if she is one of the things that is broken.)