Heart pounding, feet flying, headphones pounding louder than the popular new anime song blaring in the arcade room. Sweat dripping off the short ends of hair and splashing into the darkness and flashing lights as the limbs move faster than human. Someone by her right seems to have have missed their target for the J Stars game and curses. To her right, a child hugs their newly won stuffed toy next to a tired older brother. Left. Left. Right Up. Down. Down. New combo reached, new records unlocked. Never stopping, never slowing down. She knows that the records broken are her own-and though her limbs scream while crying for her to stop, she doesn't.
"Let me live" She thinks. But the world tells her no.
"Earthquake!" The characters on screen sing, strumming a mechanical chord before the board shuts off as the shaking starts. She doesn't think anythings wrong- the crowds always scream around her, and the shaking of the board is probably some new sort of level unlocked. Why should this time be any different? Her feet are still flying-only this time, flying sideways. Then her own screen goes blank, and she think:
Game Over.
Restart?
Yes.
She won't lose this time.
She can tell that someone is quietly worried about her in the distance.
"Sakura" a woman's voice calls.
"Sakura-chan, wake up!" Frivolously she indulges the voices' insistent calls as she opens her eyes. Like a new game, the sky is almost an endless blue. Funny, the newest games claim to be "real"; but no one sees those clear blue skies in cities now. She wonders which company made the game and how she can complain to the director.
"Sakura-chan"
Dirty blond hair with the face of a young mother. It's crumpled in worry, and she-Sakura now, looks up at the face with a mixture of vague familiarity and confusion. Her first reaction is to ask what the woman's name is. All games start out like this-the jerky beginning controls in her limbs only add to the realism. The woman starts sobbing, and Sakura thinks that she's supposed to comfort her, but stops her involuntary twitch of the hand with a hand fisted in her hair. Soft. Sakura thinks, the companies are getting better at replicating hair.
"Sakura-chan, do you know who I am? Do you know where we are?"
Shaking her head in confusion, she thinks that this current game intro is slightly longer than normal. She says nothing of it though. Maybe this game would be about a murder case? Maybe her father was missing and she had to go on a quest to find him? Or maybe a horror story where she had to go find and kill the source of the evil.
"You-you're my daughter! We live in Konoha! You want to be a ninja! Remember? Please...Just remember something!"
Sakura deans not to reply and watches as the woman (her mother)runs from the room. Ninja, she thinks. Ninja. This is a ninja game. Obviously the rules would be looser than most. I am a ninja, Sakura convinces herself, and slips quietly out of the ruffled sheets covering her frail, twig like limbs.
Creeping quietly with silent cat feet, she leans in and listens through the thin hospital doors. "Do something!" her new mother screams at someone. "Anything! This child isn't my daughter!" She feels a faint hurting in her chest, but thinks nothing of it. After all, if the games dialogue lines weren't dramatic, they wouldn't sell. Someone comes through the door-a doctor, looking harried and somewhat solemn. His name is Suo-sensei, he says. You have been admitted to Konoha orphanage by your mother, he says. I'm sorry, he says in an exhausted tone. And grasps her hand, leading her into the (next chapter) orphanage.
