Spell 001: i am the first

"I refuse to go along with this deal of yours. You may be able to make me go with you, but I'm not going to play along. This is absolutely ridiculous and you know it."

"C'mon, Sakura, can't you think of anyone besides yourself?"

"You're one to talk, dad. I got it from you."

"Well right now I'm thinking of someone besides myself. A little boy who really needs a family." His voice was rising just slightly. He was beginning to get annoyed.

"Isn't the purpose of being a foster family to bring the child to live with you? Why are we moving in with him instead?"

Her mother snapped in the front seat and leaned over the console to stare straight into her teenage daughter's eyes. Her slicked-back blonde hair was a bit disheveled from running her anxious fingers through it.

"I am on the damn phone. Shut up."

Sakura blinked and then snarled, but her mother had already returned to her phone call. She was on hold with the agency. And they were terribly lost.

Konohagakure was a small town. Why the hell were they lost? It wasn't like the big city they had moved from, which Sakura knew like the back of her hand.

Pissed off completely and no longer wanting to be annoyed by her parents, she turned her backs on them and looked out of the rear window. The moving truck was behind them and she glared at the driver. He frowned back at her and increased the distance between the two vehicles.

Her whole life had been packed into boxes. Toys, clothes, pictures, books, all of the belongings she had accumulated over her life. They were all behind her. Something heavy settled in her chest and she bit her lip. She wasn't going to cry. Just because she was on her period and her hormones were out of whack and her parents were being idiots didn't mean that she could lose her composure.

It wasn't that she cared about getting a foster brother. That wasn't what was bothering her. She'd met the little snot-nosed brat once before, back when he was in diapers. He was a curious sort but quick to cry. She didn't really mind getting a temporary little brother.

What she DID mind was having to uproot her whole life and plop it down in a stupid small town in the backwoods of society, and leaving her friends behind. They had no internet here. And they couldn't afford cell phones now-their new house cost even more for utilities than the rent they'd paid for their apartment in the city. There probably wasn't even a tower nearby anyway. They were at least three hours away from a mall.

And they had to draw water from a well. Can you believe it? All of those germs floating around in there? She would miss her chlorinated city water so much.

It was also so damn green here! She missed all of the shades of grey and black of the city. And the streetlights. They only had stop signs here. And most intersections didn't even have those.

Sakura was jolted by yet another pothole in the road, bringing her back to the present. She clenched her jaws shut and counted to ten in her head, trying to calm herself down and almost failing.

"Yes! Yes, you can help me," Sakura's mother said exasperatedly into the phone, extremely sarcastic. "We cannot find the Sarutobi residence." There was a pause. She looked at her husband. "What streets are we at?"

He blinked and looked around, then shrugged. There were no street signs. Typical. Sakura saw a general store and leaned over the middle console, pointing it out without a word, knowing already that her mother would snap if she said anything in the dull voice she had wanted to use. Her mother said the store's name into the speaker-"Uchiha General Store"-and then she started rattling off directions to her husband and he quickly went about taking them.

When they stopped, Sakura recognized the house. They'd passed it twice before. They didn't realize it was the one because the house numbers had fallen off. She could see the hollows in the uncut grass where the metal numbers were now resting near the side of the house.

A woman in a tight black suit came out of the house. Her hair was long and straight and blonde and held back in two low ponytails. She was wearing a pair of red-framed half-moon glasses over dark brown eyes. Her chest was as distracting as it was ample.

"That took quite a while," she said in lieu of a greeting. Both Sakura and her mother bristled. This lady was rude. "Come in."

Sakura almost retaliated by staying in the car but knew it wouldn't do any good to throw a tantrum. So she opened the door and placed her worn sneakers onto the pavement. Unlike the broken streets back home, there was grass growing between the cracks here. The green was relentless, trying to swallow up the asphalt. Like a scab thickening over a deep wound.

She grabbed her bag-it was not a purse-and followed her parents up the equally-cracked sidewalk and through a mass of gnats. She covered her face and almost squealed in disgust and ran through them. What the hell? She wiped two off of her tongue and shuddered. Then she slapped at her arm and noticed the stain of blood on the skin and the squished mosquito. What the hell?

She slammed the door shut behind them, shuddering again. So many damn bugs. Why were there so many bugs? Why was it so green? Screw this, she wanted to go back to their measly little apartment. Now.

It didn't matter that the house was large and grand and hundreds of years old. With a spiral staircase beyond the foyer to upstairs. And threadbare but elaborate rugs on the hardwood floor. And she could see a library around the corner, the doors wide open, with tomes of various colors inside. And a chandelier, albeit covered in cobwebs, hovered above them. And sconces on the walls held unlit candles, the dull gold wearing years of wax drippings like so many stalactites. And the wooden walls were tattooed with little carvings of various things, like horses and wolves and rams and bears.

Huh.

Okay, so she was a little intrigued about the new house. But she still didn't want to be here. She missed the doorframe of her bedroom where she had notched her growth up until her birthday of that year. There was no way to replace that here.

"In here," said the suited lady and then went down the hallway to the left, past a few closed rooms, and through a set of saloon doors into what was obviously a slightly-remodeled kitchen. It was rather big and was concrete. An old wood stove sat in the corner, black as night, the chute going through the ceiling.

At the wooden table sat her new foster brother.

He had grown a lot since she last saw him, which wasn't a surprise as it had been about nine years. He was perched on a stool with his elbows on the table, staring at them out of the corner of his eyes. His hair was dark and messy, and his eyes full of annoyance. He was wearing a pair of mesh basketball shorts and a jersey, as well as a long scarf wrapped around his neck and draping down his back to touch the floor. The thing must have been ten feet long if it had been straightened out.

"Konohamaru," said Mr Haruno, and went over to the boy. He held out his hand, which the boy stared at. He made no motion to shake it.

"You probably don't remember me-" her father started to say but was interrupted.

"Naturally, since I was a year old when we supposedly met," the boy said, his voice high-pitched. He was missing one of his incisors.

Sakura almost laughed but stopped herself. Konohamaru shifted his glance to her. "Don't even think of talking down to me, sister," he said sarcastically.

Her eyes widened slightly before they narrowed dangerously. Oh, he was so walking on thin ice right now. What had she done to warrant such a reaction?

"Now, now," Mrs Haruno said, trying to contain the situation. "We're all a little tired, I'm sure. Let's just get all of the boxes inside and then we can all take a nap."

Konohamaru slid off of the stool and turned his back to them. "Naps are for children and old geezers. Later." This last word was accompanied with a wave.

Sakura took three long strides and grabbed his scarf. It tightened around his throat and he made a strangled noise as he stumbled backwards.

"Look here, you little twat. You talk to me like that again and you're going to be hanging by this stupid piece of moth-eaten fabric from the chandelier in the foyer."

He whipped around, pulling the scarf away from his throat, glaring dangerously. "I beg your pardon?" he hissed through his teeth and the gap where the incisor was missing. "Do you even know who you're talking to?"

She grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him up. He looked a bit afraid now, underestimating her strength because of her gender. She raised her other fist, eyes like flashing emeralds, when her mother barked out, "Sakura, stop it!"

Sakura paused. Konohamaru's scared look was replaced by a cunning grin.

He thought he had won.

Yeah right.

Her fist connected with his cheek and his head whipped to the side. Her parents looked on in disbelief. The woman in the suit just shook her head.

He blinked, the pain not registering yet. She let go of his shirt and he collapsed on his knees on the concrete floor. His hand unconsciously came up and touched his jaw. The inside of his mouth had split and he felt blood pool on his tongue. He spat it out on the floor and stared up at Sakura in shock.

Sakura shook out her fist, knuckles stinging, before she pushed her bag back up on her shoulder and left out the back door. The screen door slammed shut behind her.

"Sakura!" she heard her mother yell, but she increased her pace in response. Faster and faster until she was running through the field in the backyard, over an acre of tall grasses, and over a rotten wood fence and into the woods.

She didn't realize she was crying until her vision blurred so much she had to stop running. She sat down on a fallen tree and sobbed loudly.

What the hell? They'd left every comfort they knew to come here to take care of him in the place he was most comfortable in and he badmouthed them first thing? What the hell was wrong with this kid?

She pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. A mosquito bit her thigh but she barely registered the sharp sting. The heavy thing in her chest gained more weight as the sun started to go down.

The sky was a bloody red when she finally looked up. She angrily wiped her eyes, which were stinging. Crying wasn't a habit for her and her tears were so incredibly salty they hurt, which had made her cry more.

Sakura almost had a panic attack thinking she was lost but she could still see the fence from where she was sitting. Even in anger she wasn't stupid enough to get that far into the woods. She stood and brushed flakes of decaying bark from her black-and-red camouflaged cargo pants.

Even in the sunset the temptation of following the fence to see where it would lead was too much so she pulled out her iPod (first generation, can you believe it? and it was a used item when she bought it, too) and stuck her noise-cancelling Bose headphones on (these, however, were brand new and the latest; all of her allowance from the past three years went into these babies). She slipped her giant iPod into one of her pants pockets and started to walk as a haunting melody began playing in her ears.

Her hike made a trail in the grass as the tall blades were brushed aside and stepped on, creating a mushy dark green wetness under her feet. The ground was spongy underfoot. It was strange but she found she liked it after a few more minutes of musing.

Despite the humidity it was a bit chilly out so she took out her hairclip and let her long rosewater hair fall down her back in frizzy waves. Her watch told her it was about seven o'clock. Why hadn't anyone tried to find her yet? She was sure her trek through the field had left a trail much like the one she was leaving now. She scowled and pushed the thought from her mind, concentrating on the music.

Maybe a mile down the fence-geez, this thing was long!-she stopped to lean over and pick a few burrs from her socks which had somehow made their way under her pant legs.

Her headphones, which were blasting music, suddenly let out an electronic fizzle and skipping noise and she shrieked in alarm, almost falling forwards. She hastily pulled them away from her ears.

There was a rustle behind her, muted in her music-worn ears, and she whipped around.

A reddish brown shape hopped from her trail and up onto the top of the fence, then sat down, graceful and balanced. It rubbed its face with one dark-tipped paw and then looked her straight in the eye.

It was a fox. With blue eyes.

"Hi," she said. It just stared at her. Her heart rate slowed back down to normal as she watched it. It made no move to run even as she stepped closer. It lifted a back leg and scratched at an ear, eyes closed and fangs bared in pleasure.

She was appraising its pelt. Such black paws and white throat. And fur the color of the sunset as it was an hour or so ago-

And she gasped. There was a bright flash as the sun disappeared over the horizon, leaving a stain of darker reds that bled into purple and then into dark blue.

"Shit, I need to get back."

She contemplated hopping the fence and going at an angle back at the house but she wasn't sure how much further she had traveled along the fence, so she sped past the fox and back through her trail beside the wood structure. It wasn't hard to find her way back since she had left a trail, although the grass had slowly tried to whip back into its normal standing position.

When she found the part of the fence where she'd started after she'd been sitting on the log, she groaned. She'd sat there for so long that the trail she'd left in the field was absolutely gone. She couldn't remember if she had gone straight or at an angle to come here. How far had she gone in her rage? She'd crossed that hillock earlier but from which direction?

Since it was taller than the rest of the land, she hopped the fence and made her way towards it and then up the steep incline. When she reached the top she looked around. She could see quite a few houses from here. Not knowing how her new house looked from the air, she picked a random house and went for it. If it was wrong, the people living there could give her directions.

Halfway across the field she screeched in alarm as a dark shape whooshed through the grass before her feet. She heard it circle her and then come back around.

The fox again. She knew it was the same fox because she'd never ever heard of one having blue eyes before. The irises weren't even slit, she noticed. They were oddly human-like...

"Shoo," she said, moving her foot towards it in a way that she wasn't trying to kick it but fast enough to be threatening.

It jumped and barked at her, then raced off in the direction she was traveling.

Flippin'... What was that? Did they tame foxes here? Was it someone's pet? It was being awfully familiar with a human.

She shrugged her bag back up onto her shoulder and followed it, although it was already lost in the grasses again. She unpaused her iPod and slipped her headphones back around her neck but not up on her ears.

That same mechanical skipping noise happened, like a shudder of sound and she quickly stopped the song. Great. Either her iPod was broken or her headphones were. As if her day couldn't get any worse.

A half hour later and in almost complete darkness beneath the new-moon sky (using the meagre light of the paused iPod as a flashlight), she made it to the end of the field and into someone's freshly-mown backyard. It still smelled crisp and dewy as she shuffled through the discarded piles of mowed grass-blades.

Everyone's backyards were so big here, she mused, traversing an acre to finally get to the street. She knew it wasn't her new house even in the dark and the dim lamplight near the door but she went up to knock on it anyway.

The sudden muffled barking of an extremely large dog startled her so much she retreated a few steps down. There was the sound of several locks being undone and the door cracked open a bit. A black nose on a white snout at about her chest level stuck its way out. Even with just the muzzle there, Sakura could tell the dog's skull was humongous. She could only imagine the rest of the body.

"Back, back," said a boy's voice that seemed about her age. "Akamaru, back."

He peeked through the crack and noticed a strange girl standing there he'd never seen before. She seemed a bit alarmed. He wriggled his way out and shut the door to keep the dog inside.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello," she echoed.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, appraising. The boy was taller than her by a good head. He was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a wornout black hoodie. His hair was short and wild. Two red fang-like shapes were on his face, one descending from each cheekbone until the tip reached his bottom jaw.

She couldn't tell if he was a part of a cult or not. He seemed nice enough. Except he was staring at her.

"You must be one of the people moving into the Sarutobi place," he said, breaking the silence.

She waved a mosquito away absently. "Yes. I'm lost."

"We're not used to new people moving in," he said helpfully (not) but he made his way down the steps.

She made to follow him but he suddenly stopped at the end of the driveway and simply emptied his mailbox. He made his way back past her, shuffling through the envelopes, muttering something about his great-aunt. When his hand touched the doorknob, she snapped.

"Can you please tell me how to get back to my house?"

He paused. Then he threw a fanged grin over his shoulder. "So that was your intention in the first place, eh? Can never tell with girls." He turned back around and rattled off some directions to which she quickly memorized with a frown before giving him a half-hearted "thanks" and leaving him with his mail.

He was a jerk. Wasn't he? She couldn't tell anymore. She was tired. Since there was only one school here, she was bound to run into him again, so she'd kick him in the balls then. For now, to get back home. Her stomach grumbled annoyingly.

After two right turns and a left and crossing an intersection, she passed the Uchiha General Store from before (it was closed now, naturally) and remembered how to get back to the house from there.

She'd made the final turn onto their long street when she noticed a dark shape moving forward. She froze in the night as it made its way towards her. It was human.

Her body tensed and she readied herself into a fighting stance.

"Oh. So you made your way back." That grating high-pitched voice from before.

"Sorry to disappoint you," she ground back, loosening the tightness in her body. It was just the brat. Konohamaru.

He said nothing as she breezed past him. He followed after her.

Fifty feet from their drive, he said, "Hey."

"What?" she asked, none too gently.

When he said nothing, she turned to face him. He was standing there, rubbing his neck with his hand beneath the scarf. The bright porchlight hit his face and even in the dim light she could see the bruise forming on his cheek. The heavy thing in her chest grew even heavier.

But she wasn't going to apologize. Yet.

"You're the first one to ever hit me," he said, voice flat.

"About time someone did, don't you think?" she scoffed.

He scowled at her. "My family used to own this whole town, before grandpa died. No one talked down to me. No one touched me."

"No wonder you're a brat."

"Shut-" He stopped himself and sucked in a breath, not completing his response. "Nevermind." He left her there and went up the walk to the door and opened it, light flooding out.

"Sakura!?" asked a voice.

"Sorry to disappoint you," Konohamaru echoed Sakura's words from before, voice dull. But Sakura watched her mother swoop down and embrace him.

There was shock on his face. Shock which melted into wonder. He bit his lip and his brows furrowed. She knew that face. She made it herself in the mirror. The face someone made when they were trying not to cry.

"You stupid boy! Don't you ever leave the house at night again! There could be-be axe murderers and rapists and who knows what else! Werewolves! Rabid sheep! Kangaroos with boxing gloves!"

Sakura couldn't help it. She snorted loudly. Her mother was annoying but she couldn't stay mad at her for long.

"I know everyone here. No one would hurt me," Konohamaru said, scowling.

"And if there was an escaped convict crossing the mountains to come here and start a killing spree? What then? I doubt they would know who you are, young man."

Sakura made her way up the steps and into the foyer and cleared her throat.

Mebuki looked up and noticed her daughter standing there. They stared at each other and Sakura was suddenly nervous.

Then her mother ran over, dragging Konohamaru with her, and strangled her with a hug.

"You stupid girl! I repeat the same admonitions onto you!"

The golden-haired woman was crying. Her hair was even messier than before. Kizashi came over and also wrapped his arms around them.

Sakura let her tense body relax into the embrace and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry, mom, dad," she whispered.

Eventually they broke apart and Sakura absently rubbed at her eyes. Then she noticed the woman in a suit standing there with her arms crossed under her ample bosom.

As if remembering she was there, Mebuki frowned at her daughter. "Do you realize we could have lost him because of your actions?"

Sakura blinked. Oh. The punch. She suddenly looked uncomfortable. The bruise on his face was definitely noticeable now.

The woman waved the topic away. "Now that you're all here, I can go home." When she passed them she placed a hand on Konohamaru's head and ruffled his hair. "Take care of yourself, monkey brat."

She paused in the doorway. "Oh. Young lady, will you walk me to my car?"

Sakura didn't know what to expect but she nodded and went with her to her expensive-looking vehicle. It had mud on the tires now and on the undercarriage. Quite a few bugs had kamikaze'd their way across the silver hood. The woman opened the passenger door and rummaged around in her bag before pulling out a card and offering it to Sakura.

She took it and read it in the scant light. Hashirama Tsunade. The last name sounded awfully familiar.

"If you have trouble with the brat, call me. I've wanted to smack him for awhile now but it would've been highly frowned upon." She smiled down at the girl in front of her. Sakura gave a tentative smile back. "That kid's been through a lot," Tsunade said, the smile leaving. "His parents and uncle died in a car accident five years ago, the kid being the only survivor of the ordeal. After getting out of the hospital, he started to live with his grandfather, who just recently passed away. He has no other living family." She paused. "I'm not asking you to treat him like fine china, but I know he needs a friend."

"That depends on his attitude," Sakura muttered. She'd been touched by the story, just a bit, but the words came out before she could even think them. She covered her mouth.

But Tsunade just grinned. "You speak your mind a lot. I think he needs that, too." She held out a hand. "It's a pleasure doing business with you," she said, like she had just handed over a human slave. Sakura returned the smile and shook her hand. "Go inside before the mosquitoes leave a very pretty albeit bloodless corpse on the front lawn."