1. If Chains were semi-Road to Sakura compliant and Sakura's parents were ninja.
alt. the Civilian!AU
The elderly village leader looks at her and opens his mouth -
"I am sorry for your loss. They were honourable ninja of the village."
Yuurei blinks, politeness dying on her lips, her demand laced by a foreign anger, "You're not going to tell me how Father and Mother died?"
The man presses his hands together in a steeple and lowers his face till the brim of his hat touches his fingertips.
"I am afraid that that information is classified, Haruno-kun, they were on a mission, you are not even a ninja yet."
She pretends to mull it over.
"And what does being a ninja entail?"
The leader, defensive and evasive, she is a child, he can hardly tell her – "I'm guessing that ninja are expected to murder on command?"
His hands break and his eyes meet hers – suddenly sharp and she doesn't flinch though she knows a child should.
Her mouth runs itself off.
"Father and Mother were never around. I am not a sheltered child, Hokage-sama. So how many years would I have to spend playing ninja to know someone as simple as how my parents died? Just tell me that bandits killed them and I will be on my way."
Her new friend/companion-thing, Naruto has his mouth wide open.
Obviously, he is far from the best company but Sakura has this niggling sensation at the back of her head – if he wasn't here, you would be dead.
dead.
The leader inclines his head again, hiding his eyes and Sakura knows full well he is lying when he says, "Since you're so insistent, Haruno-kun, the truth is that your parents were assassinated by a new terrorist organisation, their name is Akatsuki."
She could scoff, what, an organisation called 'Red Dawn'? how tacky.
He attempts to tap into her non-existent love for her parents, imagining that she would in her grief and love decide to seek revenge, therefore become a ninja and seek the power to bring her parents' killers to justice.
(Yuurei is not their child. I am not, I am not and I do not care – I cannot kill for the sake of such a meaningless truth.)
She looks the leader in the eye, standing on her chair, her tiny fist on the oak desk.
Sakura is somewhat aware of the masked ninja that have suddenly appeared, pushing Naruto away from the chair's side and now surround her.
"Is that a yes, Haruno-kun?" those eyes, kind and grandfatherly – she doesn't trust that kindness.
"Not at all Hokage-sama. I have no intention of being a ninja. If my parents died then I do not think I would be cut out to be one."
Pleasantly, revelling in the frustration swirling in those black eyes like they are her candy.
"What would you do then, Haruno-kun?"
She smiles.
"I am going to earn money."
Yuurei had some morals.
Yuurei also has the intelligence.
Sakura throws some away.
Sakura has chakra and though she isn't a ninja, she has these extra appendages.
Sakura isn't a ninja, she is a civilian.
She is 6 when she begins and uses her cuteness to get a ninja off the street to tell her more about ninja.
He accommodates her, points out the shelves of books according to the type and even tells her about ANBU – "They're the super-secret ones that will grab you if you're a bad kid."
She is 7 when she scores herself a tutor in the form of the librarian and has managed to circumvent the compulsory-schooling law by being classed as home-schooled.
Haruno Mebuki and Kizashi were well off – Very well off, perhaps it was an indication of the type of missions they took.
Maybe more of it, was the indication of what kind of ninja they were.
She is still 7 and she has decided that her parents were ANBU.
After all, they aren't on the stone.
She spends the day searching the stone for their names and in the end there's nothing there.
She assumes and never comes back.
The grey-haired ANBU looks over this pink-haired girl who spent hours tracing every name on the stone and left with a renewed vigour.
He wonders.
What does she have that I lack that I cannot look like that when I leave?
She is 7 but the leader of her great village only smiles at her when she files paperwork to buy into a textile merchant's business.
The merchant takes her on like she's an investor but by the time she is 8 there is not enough space for both in that one business.
They're joint holders but everyone in the market knows she has the money.
So she reaches out to the competitors.
"If I offer this to you, what can you give me in return?"
They offer her everything and she tells them, "I want to buy your business."
Yuurei thinks.
What sort of capitalist economy doesn't have a single anti-trust law?
She doesn't quite like how the Hokage smiles at her when she walks into his office for him to simply witness the signing over of multiple businesses over to her.
The merchants walk out and the Lord Hokage calls out, "Businessman Haruno, if I could have a word?"
(The other merchants gossip, "Did you know, the Lord Haruno has the Hokage's favour?)
She smiles a knife's smile and the Hokage merely advises, "Draw a picture of your alternate persona, Haruno-kun. It won't do if Haruno Seiji looks a little different every day, right?"
Yuurei is not a ninja, neither is Sakura.
Yuurei obviously cannot do a henge, but Sakura is very good at it, perhaps that's because her chains, if they can be called that are so malleable.
She knows the theory of a henge, of course.
Chakra is fascinating, the librarian has lectured her on the force multiple times but she always feigns boredom because if not, the great leader would get her enrolled. She finishes school quickly, passes the exams of the civilian school and graduates early to freedom.
But Chakra… that one lingering thing and the lingering things that blossom from her back and continue to multiply, increasing in length, number and thickness.
She forms constructs out of them – her transformation is solid because she's technically wearing a body suit that looks and feels like flesh.
Seiji is much taller than Sakura – he's a little more similar to what Yuurei is used to.
At 170 cm, Haruno Seiji has an aura of calmness, he's slow to anger but quick to react and that intimidates people.
At 1450 mm, Sakura is 8 and wears her hair short like Seiji.
Her parents are ANBU and therefore as far as people are concerned, they're alone.
When people ask, Seiji demurs and shifts the topic to his lovely younger sibling, "She's home-schooled but a good child. When she's older, I'll let her run the business with me."
This is an elaborate ploy – what? The village doesn't have an open database, the Haruno had no close family friends capable of outing her.
Seiji ends a day after work, opens the door and calls out, "I'm home," so loud the neighbours can hear him – closes the door before they can hear the reply and fact is.
There isn't a separate Sakura.
That is the realisation the grey-haired ANBU comes to.
Haruno Seiji walked into the bathroom and out came Haruno Sakura.
The girl sits down at the family table alone and eats a simple meal of rice and fried fish.
He shifts a little closer to look at the child who pretends to be the merchant he's in charge of looking after.
"If you care enough for Father and Mother then you will keep my secret, yes, ANBU-san?"
She cuts through the fish and speaks knowing he'll listen and he keeps his laughs silent.
As if I care about her parents.
Because, Yuurei assumes – a secret task force with no one ought to at least recognise their own.
It begs the question of course,
I wonder what happened to Haruno Mebuki and Kizashi.
The ANBU wonders, but only nods.
That is enough of an answer for Yuurei.
Sakura has cemented her idea that her parents were ANBU.
Sakura is 9 and she has taken control of the entire textile industry of Konoha.
A monopoly of the first kind – as if she were a pioneer of this market structure that no one had ever seen before.
She is 9 and she has decided, no, I no longer need to hide behind the façade of an older male.
"ANBU-san, will you pretend to be Seiji?"
It's a power shift – she is a fool to trust the ninja with her persona, a fool to teach him how to act and he smiles at the next merchant, telling him, "This is Sakura, she'll be taking over from me."
The girl holding his hand murmurs, "Next, Merchant Guild Head, Tadashi-sama."
Vaguely, the ANBU recognises the male, oh this man, always causing trouble for the ninja-half of the council. Hm. Hokage-sama considered dealing away with him before. Merchant Guild Heads are always the most troublesome, the most prone to being compromised.
'Seiji' smiles pleasantly, introducing Sakura who has her chains wrapped around him, it's not uncomfortable, he admits.
It's oddly comforting because she is a child without the ability to kill.
He places a warm hand on top of Sakura's head and feels her questioning gaze on him – they confuse the ninjas into thinking 'Seiji' is real.
After all, her chakra is so thick it hides his already muted signature. Blood-related kin tend to feel similar, without a trained sensor he feels real enough, therefore Haruno Seiji is Haruno Sakura's older sibling.
And before Sakura even had a chance to react, her older brother has swirled around to grab a child in his arms and protect all of them from the sudden volley of apples.
(the sun. hair blond like the sun, ah she had never seen him again after that one day.)
"Naruto-kun!" she calls out to try and rationalise why the fine member of the upstanding merchant community would protect the 'demon'.
She is a child and mistakes can be forgiven.
The market breaks out into hushed mutterings.
"Nii-chan! This is the friend I was talking about! Naruto-kun, this is my nii-chan, Seiji."
Seiji runs a hand through the hair which doesn't stick up quite the right way, carefully pulling Sakura into an embrace, murmuring, "Sakura…"
She cocks her head aside, though her arms come up to hug her brother back.
Her confusion is real, split between /why don't they like Naruto/ and \how it is that you are hugging me\
Naruto smiles a shy smile and Seiji smiles back, landing a very gentle and tender hand on his head.
(the sun bloomed like an explosion and) a hush fell over the crowd.
"There's nothing scary at all about you after all, huh. I heard you were a notorious prankster, Naruto-san."
The blond rubs the back of his head, "Don't worry I won't prank you if you're good to Sakura-chan."
His heart is so wide. She hasn't seen him since that day yet he so readily opened his heart to her.
Sakura decides then.
"Nii-chan. Will you be Naruto-kun's nii-chan too?"
Before the merchants and the crowd, 'Seiji' agrees and Sakura's plans from the beginning are ruined.
She needs this ANBU now.
She can't be both 'Seiji' and Sakura at the same time.
She was wrong. This was a mistake, but she had done it.
The apples from that merchant were sour.
Seiji is not a forgiving person.
Seiji must also love his younger sister enough to keep her entirely sheltered from the world.
Therefore.
Sakura becomes distracted in her conquest.
She had thought textiles would be where she would start, and Artisan Guild Head where she would end.
Hm. Fuki-sama can have another year.
Seiji buys over all the small farms in the region.
That is the end of sour apples. Except the granny smiths.
She still wants to make pie.
She began as a textile shop, became a farm owner and then a baker.
She ended as the backbone of a nation.
He began as a ninja, became a pretender, then became her brother.
He ended up as their brother.
(they lived happily ever after.)
Hello guys, Kayo here, back after a month.
Basically, I have a plot bunny problem, especially when I talk to readers.
This chapter is specifically dedicated to TheOne320 who gave me the muse for this chapter.
I did not finish the entirety of canon, and honestly, I always took it for granted that Sakura's parents were civilian cause Kakashi at the very start.
But because Kishimoto wrote Road to Sakura, it seems quite official that Sakura came from a ninja family, just not a ninja clan.
I guess this reads a bit like an extended synopsis, I would love to see people write this story out. If this idea strikes your fancy and you want to write it, I'd love to read/beta(if needed) it. Do PM if you'd like to try out this prompt, and I'll link your story here for future readers :)
Do review when you come by, this has been sitting here for about two weeks but I couldn't write out the next chapter of Chains in time aihhh so here, have this first!
What do you think, what other AUs would you all like to see? Just drop it in a review or PM yeah, don't be shy!