Sakura's father never wanted her to become a kunoichi, for all that he and her mother are genin, he's always been hesitant to support her. It was the subject of many whispered conversations between her parents late at night.
Looking down at the caskets of her only family, Sakura misses those conversations.
Haruno Mebuki and Kizashi were two career genin who usually took missions escorting merchants, they could've become chunin had they both been born in Konoha, but it's the unofficial policy that Konoha tries to keep its foreign born ninjas from actual village secrets that chunin might be exposed to. But they'd been solid ninja, that much she knew, not the strongest, or the fastest, or the most powerful, but they knew what they were doing.
Sakura's vindictively comforted by the fact that they not only completed their last mission, but took down five jonin with them.
If she doesn't get to keep her parents, they don't get to keep their lives.
The ceremony ends quietly, unbefitting of her parents, she thinks, remembering ridiculous arguments and loud laughter. She walks back to an empty house before anyone can comfort her, taking back alleys and sticking to shadows.
She's never felt more like a ninja.
Sakura's always been the kind of girl to moderate her mood, showing the world only the good sides of her. And even now she can't let that part of her go long enough to cry. It's just easier to run away and not face anyone who would make her break down and let out how she really feels.
The door lock echoes in the silence and she throws herself back against the door. She sinks to the floor.
Her parents are dead.
She fights the scream bubbling up from the back of her throat, biting her lip so hard that it bleeds. She remembers the last time she screamed and knows that if she starts, she won't ever stop.
Her parents are dead, and she must scream.
These things Sakura knows about her family:
1. Her mother was the youngest of seven, three died in Uzushigakure when it fell, two died in the second shinobi war, one died the night of the Kyuubi attack, until it was only Mebuki left.
2. For all that she had been born in Konoha, her parents hadn't been. She remembers sitting her down and telling her why they hoped one day she'd make it to at least chunin, something that had been outside of their reach as foreign born ninjas.
3. Her father shared his unusual coloring with the rest of his family, that is, of course, before they'd all been killed. *
4. Before his hair had turned a dull sort of pink in his early 30s, her father's hair had been red. Blood red. It had only turned pink, he used to joke, because he had finally washed the blood of his enemies out.
5. Her mother had found that hilarious … other people … not so much. **
6. Her father's family had been traveling performers from beyond Mist, not even on the maps she'd learned at the Academy. According to him they'd traversed the whole world, not just the five nations, and she could spend hours listening to him sing their songs and tell their stories. ***
7. Her favorites had always been the tales of her father's homeland, where his mother's family had been from, farther away from where he'd settled than even Earth country. A place of rolling hills and rain and green fields, haunted by wild hunts and seal women shedding their skins to live on land. ***
* There's a macabre sort of symmetry in her parents history that she's heard them joke about before. **
** Black comedy had been surprisingly common among the mildly-named occupants of the Haruno household. ***
*** Sakura herself was the farthest thing from an exception to that rule.
She wakes herself up with the sound of her screaming, images of dismembered limbs and dusty pink hair stained thoroughly red with blood. She tries to tell herself that it's just her overactive imagination creating scenarios to explain the injuries she saw when she went to identify their bodies.
That's not true. Maybe if she was having different dreams, she'd believe it, but it's the exact same dream every night. And the dreams had started two days before she'd even known her parents were dead. She's been waking up screaming every night.
She puts the kettle on the stove, and lets the familiar motions of making tea bring her back to herself. It's still dark outside which makes the interior of her house darker, but she doesn't turn the lights on as she pours water over loose tea.
She doesn't need the light to illuminate the places where her parents aren't anymore.
She looks out the window. It's not yet 4:00am. She could get ready for school.
She doesn't need to go, she could not go for weeks if she really wanted to. No one will be expecting her, at least none of the teachers. She doesn't really have friends anymore, not since Ino, or at least no one close enough to burden with her feelings. As far as her classmates are concerned, she's just the same girl she was three days ago, before her parents were dead.
Thinking of the pitying looks that Sasuke-kun got for weeks after his family was killed and still gets now, she doesn't think that she wants to tell anyone.
She thinks she might understand him more now. She understands Naruto-baka less. Had there been more orphans in her class, she'd probably be comparing herself to them too.
She doesn't want to spend the day at home, packing up her parent's things and deciding whether or not to move to orphan housing. She just wants her parents and to go back to the Sakura of three days ago; that's never going to happen again.
She washes her cup, reminded of her father's tales of bean-nighe washing the clothes of the soldiers next in line to die, and knows that she can't stay in this house today. Nor tomorrow. Nor any day really. Her parent's voices ring just outside the edges of her hearing, and she can't do this.
She dries the cup and places it back in the cupboard. It's 4:15 now.
She reaches around her sadness, the pure emptiness that occupies the space in her heart reserved for her parents, and pushes it away to the same place she hides her anger. It's doing her no good now. Her parents are dead, and she's an orphan, and there is work that needs to be done. All she really has left is her bones and her practicality.
She makes a list in her head: she needs to get ready, go to the Hokage about selling her house and moving to the orphan apartments, collect the bounties from her parents last kills, hire a genin team to move her items to storage. She has so much to do and all she wants to do is lay in her bed and stare at her walls until she dies. She pushes that thought away also. She thinks of her screaming nightmares and adds a visit to the library; Iruka had mentioned sound-dampening seals once in class.
She bites her bottom lip, tearing the scab from the day before.
She needs to scream.
She runs a hand through her hair, roughly pulling at tangles.
She needs to get out of this damn house.
so this fic is going to go on forever, and it's going to have two main parts interspersed with like a background info interlude for each chapter (hopefully).
