A/N: I know some people don't read my profile page, so I'll just state that Reaching for the Sky is on hiatus. I should probably be working on an original story right now, but hey. I got this so stuck in my head I got a headache and decided to write it. I don't have any update schedule at the moment so please excuse me if the wait for another chapter for any of my stories seems unbearable. Please give me some sort of feedback because my sister refuses to read this story. :(
The Forests of Konoha
Chapter 1: Love and War
"You're such a child. You talk of nothing but pipe dreams… there are times when a ninja must make painful choices."
~Uchiha Itachi~
Where am I? Why is it so dark here? I can barely stretch my arms…
She felt as though she had spent an eternity there. She knew there was someone else there, since she could feel them restlessly moving also. It took some time, but finally she figured out where she was. She was in a womb.
The girl could barely remember anything. She knew of rebirth, so she was assuming that was what was happening to her, except she couldn't remember how she had died. Remembering her life before rebirth was difficult, but if she strained her mind enough, she could see images. They all flashed by like a slide show.
Click.
A girl with dark brown hair, looking into a mirror.
Click.
Hands held out in front of her, enthusiastically opening a present.
Click.
Glares sent at a blank paper full of equations that she didn't understand.
Click.
A book held in front of her, eyes quickly scanning the pages of the manga.
These images changed over and over again, continuing to flash through her head. Soon enough, she decided that the memory of her death was not there, and stopped looking for it, but continued to let the images of her past life flash through her mind.
It seemed to take years for her birth to actually happen. Everything had been muffled before, and now the sound hurt her ears, and her eyes, unaccustomed to light, were blurry and painful, causing her to cry out. She was out first, her companion left to wait, who arrived soon after.
She heard unfamiliar words all around her, not English or any other language that she could recognize. Warm arms held her, and the blurry face above her was assumed to be her mother. The woman whispered soothing words, her voice gentle. The babies' loud cries soon were quieted, and the girl trapped in a baby's body fell asleep.
x~x~x
It took a couple of years, but the girl finally understood the language. Her name was Hatake Moriko, and she was born into a world of ninjas. If her memory served her correctly, the manga she had read in her past life was about this world, and her brother was the sensei of the main character. Sadly, she had never started the second part of the series, so she didn't know what happened.
Well, she was gonna find out, then.
x~x~x
"Hey, Mori-chan, wanna play ninja?"
The older girl nodded at her brother's question, and silently followed him to the targets. Both of them were hailed as geniuses, though Moriko knew that she was most definitely not one. Because she already had a full consciousness when she was born, it caused her to seem advanced. She also wasn't very childish, and spent most her time on training, understanding that what was to come would require much skill and courage.
Her brother adored her for this. Whenever their mother told them that it was time to stop training, both would refuse, and finally she gave in and let them continue when she saw they preferred training to playing. Their father wholly approved, though he wished they would make more friends. Their mother agreed with their father on the friends' aspect.
Moriko already had kunai down at the age of four, and now a half of the year later could almost hit the center of the target with a shuriken, but she missed the target fully with senbon. Her favorite weapon to use was a katana, though. Her father and brother could have their tantos, she loved her katana. It wasn't truly hers, but her fathers. He was letting her train with it until she was a genin and then he would give Moriko her own katana.
Out of the corner of her eye, Moriko noticed someone enter the house. She frowned slightly. Her father was not due back for another two days, yet someone randomly walked into the house without knocking.
Then the screams started. Moriko didn't even think. She was already running towards the pained shrieks of her mother, but as she got to the door, they stopped.
"Kaa-chan?"
When Moriko heard no reply, she turned to her brother, and whispered, "Get other ninja." Hearing her brother's footsteps disappearing behind her, she padded silently into the foyer of her home.
Her mother, Hatake Aimi, had beautiful blue eyes and long curly brown hair. Her appearance had fooled many, being a jounin of Konoha, skilled in taijutsu. She had been teammates with Maito Dai once upon a time, and even now, they were a pair to be reckoned with.
Moriko had the same color of eyes, but her hair she got from her grandfather- spiky instead of curly or defying gravity- which was silver, like her brothers. She wasn't bad at taijutsu, but she excelled in kenjutsu. She hoped to someday be a master of her blade. Yet another area she was good in was ninjutsu, though she knew she didn't hope to surpass her brother. She herself focused mainly on control. She knew that her team in the future would need a medic and she knew that the so called 'healers' were deadly in their own right.
She snapped out of her revere by the sound of a board creaking above her. She had snuck out before to practice in the middle of the night when she couldn't sleep for worry or fear, so she knew which to step on and which not to. He may have had the advantage of experience but she had the advantage of home territory and could stall if she needed to.
Moriko tried not to think about what the ninja was doing. It was well known that hunter-nin beheaded their prey when they killed them, which was likely what he was doing now. She wasn't going to delude herself into believing that her mother was still alive. By this point, if she were still alive, she'd wish she weren't.
The girl continued up the stairs, knowing the ANBU would be there in minutes. She just had to distract him until then. She went through her head for ideas but found none, but she knew that every second counted. She herself was running out of time.
Maybe this is better… some morbid little part of her whispered. You weren't meant to exist in this world in the first place. You'll only ruin more lives.
She shook off those thoughts, quieting them as she reached for the door handle. She paused and closed her eyes, waiting for some stroke of brilliance to come upon her.
Creak…
Her eyes flung themselves open, and she stared with horror at the man in front of her. He wore an ANBU mask, but the symbol engraved onto the masks was not the Leaf's, but Suna's. Suna, as in who they were fighting a war against at the moment.
Oh, shit!
She turned around, catching a glimpse of the blood coating his form and the head held disrespectfully in his hands by the hair, not bothering with stairs but literally sliding down the banister. She heard the man curse behind her and a poof which she realized was him sealing her mother's head into a scroll. Her mother's head- Nononono, I'm not losing my family all over again; I've only just gotten over that!
She could feel sobs shaking her form and knew that soon she would be out of breath because of it. This was not a good situation for battle- and who was she kidding? He was the elite of the elite, she could never hope to defeat him! She may as well give herself up now-
Genjutsu!
Shouting, "Kai!" and fumbling with the seal, she felt the tips of her fingers brush the handle of the door-
Just as hands grabbed her shoulders and a kunai blade was pressed against her throat.
"Now, where do you think you're going?"