Chapter Text
Sakura Haruno - 6 years old
To win a game of ninja, you have to be quick and sneaky. Walking without being seen and without noise. You have to be able to see where the others are and target them strategically from the strongest to weakest. You also have to evade attention. Camouflage in your surroundings by having accidentally chosen a green dress that morning. How fortunate. Or you can be good at climbing silently. Half of the children are unable to climb and those that are capable cannot do it without making any sound. Above all else, you must make sure to appear as the lesser threat. Run a bit slower when not alone, only climb where you cannot be seen and so on.
Then, sweet victory is yours. Glorious but ephemeral.
To win the most games of ninja, however, you have to be a bit shit at it. Tactics only go so far, if you best them every single time, the other kids will not want to play with you. They also want the sweet taste of victory, even if they do not deserve it.
So, you have to walk without sounds, except for the time you walk on crunchy sand to avoid winning for the third time in a row. You have to climb trees silently except the time you fake being unable to climb and get tagged. You have to be able to camouflage except the times you intentionally let the ‘ninja’ get a glimpse of your embarrassingly pink hair. They tend to obsess over her pink hair, for whatever reason.
The long game, dad called it. Maximizing the odds over times rather than focus on the immediate rewards. And Sakura always played the long game.
Sakura understood the long game, but she played it alone. The other children did not play the Game, did not conceive its mere existence. The saw the thread but not the tapestry. They could not even entertain the idea that they were losing even as they were winning. It was too much to grasp with their small focus-less minds.
The worst offender, by far, had been Naruto.
He had appeared one day, no parent, and asked to play. We had agreed, because, why not. He started the day by losing. It was clear he had not known the rules but seemed to catch on after a few tries. Sakura, as per usual when a new played entered the arena, decided not to win a single game that day. First impression mattered. And she did not want Naruto’s opinion of her to be coloured by her tactical superiority.
Naruto was excessively happy to play with them. Not surprising considering the way the villagers treated him. He spoke loudly, ran loudly, climbed loudly and even breathed loudly. Not your typical winner in a game of ninja. And a definite loser in the Game.
However, as kids continued to play and get tired, Naruto had as much energy, if not more. He spoke even more loudly as he started to win. He wasn’t even a very good winner as he bragged and accused people of being “slow” and him being the best “as expected of the future Hokage”. Not very clever considering his avowed goal was to become friends with us.
Naruto did not, in fact, notice the increasing furrowed gazes following him. The fact that each time he won and bragged, one or two kids did not continue to play and silently pursued other games. He had not noticed that, by the end of the afternoon, the children no longer smiled as they played, no longer gave their all since they would lose anyway and no longer congratulated Naruto on his foregone victories.
What Naruto noticed was that parents forcefully took their kids away from him and whispered harshly about him being a “monster”. Even Naruto had to have noticed the hatred the adults seemed to permeate in his presence. Sakura, however, was not sure he had noticed the badly hidden fear, the anxiety and the mourning. He triggered complex emotions in those people and that had been such a tantalizing realization for Sakura. Why? There had to be a reason for the random extreme distaste towards a small child.
It led her on a search for the truth. She had a mystery in front of her eyes. It was clear there was a secret, and she felt like playing detective.
Sakura started by furtively befriending the friendless fiend. It had not been difficult. She just had to say that she wanted to be friends. Naruto even readily agreed to “play” in secret because of her supposed fear of her parents' reprisal.
In truth, her parents would not mind…probably. Her mother seemed like a blank slate, she would agree with Sakura, be anxious about her safety and just forget whatever Sakura had said to her as long as Sakura ate dinner and brushed her hair before going to sleep. Her Father, on the contrary, would be very interested in the friendship. He would probably ask pointed questions about her goals and remind Sakura to remain discreet. Ugh, she knew. Frankly, he was such a paranoid parent, it was a wonder she let her play with other kids at all.
It was clear Naruto was completely clueless about a lot of things. He was clueless about eating things other than ramen, recognizing genuine interest from a faked one and, more importantly, the reason behind his -frankly horrendous- treatment by 50% of the village. The other half simply chose to ignore him.
Kami, was he needy. Since he had no other friend, he wanted her opinion on everything and to spend all of their time together. She went to his apartment, where he lived alone (!) at six. It was dirtier than dirt. Between the cobwebs and the different warring ant colonies, Sakura wondered if she had entered a cursed land and therefore needed to call the local exorcist asap.
However dirty the apartment appeared; the bathroom was worse. Sakura wanted to clean her own eyes after opening the door. She closed immediately before walking away backward. The boy had not learned to aim, that was for sure. He also had no clue how to clean after himself…not a winning combo.
In addition to its deleterious state, the apartment smelled horrendous. It seemed changing bedsheets was a foreign concept for Naruto. As well as opening windows, washing dishes and taking out the trash…
Sakura went outside to breathe. Everything in that enclosed space had to be a health hazard, even the air.
Hence, the day of Sakura’s first and only visit to Naruto’s apartment was also Sakura’s first day of public service. She not only helped with cleaning (by using all her saved funds, and a bit of borrowing from her father, to hire a professional cleaner) and gave a few sensible, feasible guidelines. S.M.A.R.T. goals with regards to cleaning and basic hygiene. She probably saved Naruto’s life that day. From a horrible death by some horrendous infectious parasitic worm-mushroom-type-thing. Sakura was unclear about his specific means of death, but cholera wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities.
The visit would feature in Sakura’s nightmares for years to come.
Afterward it became apparent Naruto had developed a bit of a crush. One she did not reciprocate even a little. At that point Sakura decided to inform Naruto that her parents had, sadly, discovered the existence of their friendship so they had to cut ties. Naruto was so sad. Sakura had to cry a bit to sell the story. She simply did not have the emotional strength to deal with Naruto. He was too much for a fellow six years old to handle. Hopefully, he would meet adults who could offer him some parenting and guidance. She could not be that for him.
That day she also gave an anonymous tip to the Uchiha police about potential child neglect. Her father told her a lot about the police, and he did not have the best opinion about them, or the Konoha justice system in general.
Hopefully the Uchiha would investigate, and something would come out of it. They were not known for being good at this type of cases. Ask the Uchiha to stop a fight: five stars, will call again. Ask the Uchiha to deal with child abuse or child endangerment and you will find that the Uchiha officer on the case was also a child, albeit with fancier eyes, that has been abused and endangered and saw nothing wrong with it.
Fortunately, according to her father, the yūkaku policed itself. Unfortunately, their police were also the yakuza. Better chance it with the Uchiha if you had the choice.
Sakura returned home to find her father in the entrance with two suitcases, saying goodbye to her tearful mother.
Kizashi, as usual, had his pink hair gelled back, giving him a more serious look than any man with pink hair had any right to have. In contrast, Mebuki had the traditional fire nation look with her brown hair, dark eyes and average height. In the past, the gossiping neighbours had some trouble accepting that Mebuki and Sakura were related, spreading unkind rumours about Mebuki when they thought she could not hear. It took her father walking with them to put the rumours to rest. Indeed, Sakura was a carbon copy of her father.
That was when Kizashi had introduced Sakura to the long game. He talked about what some people liked to think of as looking beneath the surface. But that was short-sighted. The Play was like an onion with infinite layers. It was complex and always shifting. You had to piece it by players before being able to comprehend the whole. Each player had their own rules, their own goals and their own means. Once you understood enough players, you could start to see the board, so to speak.
Kizashi had seemed dismissive of the pathetic attempt to disrepute their family. The gossiping neighbours played with small-scale reputation and standing, and their only goal was a base form of shadenfreude. Once she understood their play and what little they stood to gain, Sakura distrusted the neighbours on principle. She played the perfect loving child whenever they were nearby. And they did not notice if her smile had an extra bite.
“Ah Sakura! How was your day?”
“Fine. Are you leaving father? When are you coming back?”
Instead of answering her father had this intense look and motioned her to come inside “ Now now, Sakura, say goodbye to your mother before we leave”. Sakura said nothing for a few seconds “What?”
“Did I not tell you? I am taking you this summer during my travels” Sakura looked at her father and his unusually serious gaze. She looked at her mother and her rare display of emotion besides low-level worry. Something was going on. Sakura felt on the back foot. Surely she could have been informed earlier. There must be a reason for the sudden departure, and she did not like not knowing.
She looked at her mother, who was teary-eyed but quite accepting of her father traveling with Sakura so suddenly…”Father, Mum, I have made a promise to see a friend tomorrow! He is going to the academy, like me. Can we go tomorrow or something?” She made no such promise, but if she would take the chance to delay their departure in order to discover what was going on.
Her father looked at her quite seriously. “ I am afraid not my dear.”. She looked at her mother for support but Mebuki just stood there sniffing noisily into a flowery handkerchief.
There was no winning here. Her shoulders slumped as she took her travelling suitcase silently. Her father nodded at her and she was hugged by her mother before leaving.
Once they were both in their family wagon with their stock of merchandise, they departed without a word.
As the town border came into view, her father returned to his usual jovial self. He waved at one of the chuunin on border patrol “Hey there, Hayate! Who did you piss to be on patrol! I thought I would not see you on the border again!”
The brown-haired chuunin named Hayate gestured lazily “Yeah Yeah, I lost a bet, you happy Kizashi?” Her father laughed loudly “I would be happier if you stopped smoking! I could smell you before I saw the border!”
Hayate seemed to look sheepishly at the other chuunin on patrol who was openly amused at his expense. “Laugh while you can, old man! I can have you audited anytime” The purple haired chuunin piped in “Is that abuse of power I hear Hayate? Truly a new low”
Hayate seemed to realize there was no winning for him and sighed defeatedly. “Such a pain…By the way, old man, where are you going? If you are going North and passing by Frost Country, I could use your help to deliver some packages. Nothing too heavy but not all of us have a summons” He looked pointedly at his colleague.
She was looking at her nails “I can summon my eagles if you take my next patrol Hayate, you know the deal”
Her father was smiling at the colleagues by-play “No need, I am indeed going North and I would not mind making a few stops. Just promise me to try to cut-back Hayate. I am sure the med-nin must be on your back for this”. Hayate looked uncomfortable at this “you have no idea, old man.”
Sakura helped her father take the packages before they left, waving at the two active shinobi.
As soon as they were out of sight her father resumed his earlier stony disposition.
Half an hour later Sakura noticed they were going South.
Two hours later, her father uncovered a hidden cache and activated several different seal matrices nestled there. Then he turned toward her with serious eyes boring into her own: “I think it is time you learned about our clan”.