"Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me." - Walt Whitman
Being born a Sarutobi is a great opportunity. Our clan leaders are always shinobi of great repute. We are known for our affinity with ninjutsu, as well as our loyalty to Konoha. We are blessed with fantastic chakra quantities and great physical mobility. The Sarutobi clan encourages its shinobi to find their own fighting style and method, something few other clans do.
There are a few downsides to being a member of this respected clan. We have no kekkei genkai. There are clans far greater and more powerful than our own. But our largest problem by far is our lack of women. The Sarutobi clan, for all its strength, produces almost entirely male offspring.
There has been one female born into the clan relatively recently. Her name is Moriko Sarutobi, currently a Jonin of the village hidden in the leaves, granddaughter of the clan leader and Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, Asuma Sarutobi's niece, older sister to Konohamaru Sarutobi, and current head of the Sarutobi clan. Most importantly though, she is the first female Sarutobi in seventy two years.
I am Moriko Sarutobi, and as cliche as it sounds, this is my
I was born to Makoto and Kyo Sarutobi. The first four years of my life were wonderful, full of love and warmth and laughter. My mother, father, and I visited with my grandfather and uncle whenever we weren't busy.
Though I don't remember my early years all that well, I do remember the fun I had. My mother was a civilian, but the males of my family, of which there were many, were more than happy to start my education in chakra control. They had all sorts of fun games for young me to play. Float the feather was first, followed by "playing ninja" when I was able to walk and run sufficiently. Though my grandfather used to tell me it was more fun for them than it was for me, which probably had something to do with the amount of jumping and rolling I did. My mother and I would cook, and I would see how many pieces of food I could get into the pot or pan. My all time favorite game was annoying (amusing) grandpa, which could be accomplished by using chakra to stick papers from his big wooden desk onto my hands and running around, flapping my wings like a large, squealing, giggling, dirty bird.
The day I turned four was the day I found what I enjoyed doing more than anything else, at least when it came to chakra games. Uncle Asuma and my grandpa had come over for a small celebration that involved a cake and candles, an event embedded with fantastic amounts of laughing and giggling. It was on that day Uncle Asuma decided to teach me shogi, a very complex game for a four year old. I listened with interest as the game was explained to me, but as soon as we actually started to play I lost interest, as four year olds tend to do. The shogi piece I had in my hand was cool to the touch, and though I don't remember exactly, I probably had the urge to make it warmer. I used what little control of chakra I had to try to change the shogi piece. It got warmer and warmer as Uncle Asuma droned on and on about the strategies I could use when playing. Then everything changed quite abruptly. The shogi piece exploded, working as a small incendiary device. The fire from the explosion burned off Asuma's eyebrows and singed my bangs, blackening both of our faces with a surprising amount of soot. In that instant I had found my bliss.
From that point onward my sole purpose in life was to see how effectively I could demolish something using chakra. I toddled around pushing my chakra into things, vases, lights, chairs, until they would burst forth full of flame and glory. It mortified my mother, who followed after me, constantly saying something along the lines of "Moriko, if you blow up one more thing you will be in timeout for the rest of your life!" or "Moriko, not the...".
My life took a turn for the worse, though, and I soon found myself with a massive amount of responsibility stacked on my shoulders itty bitty shoulders.
One day my father did not come home. It was not unusual, he often was gone for months at a time with no warning. But this time there was something final about his lack of appearance. My mother was eight months pregnant, and father would never have accepted a long term mission so close to the due date. Of course, now that I am grown I can understand the situation much more clearly than I did as a child. Then, when I was four, things were much harder to understand, as if there was a veil over all of the situations I was living through. All I knew was that my daddy wasn't home, and mommy was super clingy, telling me my sibling was coming soon, and that daddy would be back. She held me the entire day, as if it would ease her worry.
It was a long night in my bed, waiting to hear dad come through the door or window, but he did not. I woke up the next morning to a knock on the door, and I thought that maybe daddy had come home with a surprise. I think mom thought so too, because she walked to the door with an angry bounce to her step, as though she was mad at the person knocking on our front door. It was Uncle Asuma and Grandpa, whom I thought were there for a visit. Instead of coming inside, Uncle Asuma handed my mother something wrapped in a white cloth. She unwrapped it, and inside laid a black and white mask, which looked like a tanuki, otherwise known as a racoon dog. The gift destroyed the perfect image that was my mother. She shut the door on our family, something I had never seen her do. Mom then set the mask on the table and went up the stairs to her room, and locked the door. The clock read 12:02.
I made cereal for lunch that day, and had it again for dinner. Both times I left bowls outside of my mother's door, hoping she'd eat. She ate one bowl. The other sat their abysmally, the small, beaten pieces of wheat had long since disintegrated and mingled with the milk by the time I came back to check on them.
I had cereal for breakfast the next day too, and for lunch as well. But, inevitably, we ran out of cereal, so I did what every logical four year old would do, I began to blow things up.
I wasn't being destructive because I was angry or upset, I was destroying things merely to get my mother's attention. I had even opened up all the windows to let the smoke out. The things I detonated made loud, cacophonous noises that echoed through the house, and I was very sure my mother would come down, furious at the destruction of her furniture, and after her fit of rage, would discover we needed food and would go out to buy some.
It did not work exactly as I had planned it. Instead of calling my mother's attention, it brought attention from the other Sarutobi's in the clan compound. When they realised where the noised were coming from, my Uncle Asuma was brought to my house.
"Why in the world are you blowing up the chairs, Moriko?" He had never sounded so cross with me, and I immediately began to cry, giant tears rolling down my face and blurring my vision.
When it was all said and done, Uncle Asuma and I went out shopping. Every morning he would come over and cook our food for the day, and it was my job to get my mother to eat it. Unfortunately my uncle, though I idolized him, could only make breakfast foods, so that was all I ate, right up until the day my brother was born.
It was cold and snowy the day my brother was born. The wind swept the falling snow into little flurries of frozen feathery fun for me to delight in. The sun peaked through the clouds just enough to make it a bright day, though it wasn't exactly sunny.
Uncle Asuma had come over to make breakfast, and had brought my grandfather along with him. After breakfast, which was pancakes and bacon, Grandpa and my uncle went to talk to my mother. They told me to go out and play in the snow, or to find a friend to play with.
In the month after my father's death I had made my first friend, and as far as I was concerned, the only one I would ever really need. His name was Kiba Inuzaka and he had funny looking red triangles on his face, along with a nice amount of shaggy light brown hair. He was lots of fun, and we talked about all sorts of things, from pancakes to dog piles. One of our favorite pass times, aside from playing ninja, was to wrestle with each other and the Ninken dogs that his family raised.
Whenever I went to Kiba's house his sister would smile at me and say, "Hello!Are you going to beat Kiba today Moriko?" And every time she asked I would always reassure her by replying " I always win Hana. He can't go easy on me, I'm stronger than him." She would laugh and go back to doing academy homework, or continue to work with the dogs.
Their mother was similarly minded when it came to our wrestling matches, especially because they invariably ended with her son pinned to the floor or defeated in a game of ninja. If she wasn't on a mission, and was at the house she would tell me to "Whoop that smartass into shape."
I imagine that part of the reason we got along so well when we first met was that neither of us had fathers. Kiba's family was run by women, and his mother had eventually run his father off. But even though Kiba's only male role model was his mother's giant Ninken dog, the young Inuzaka was no worse for wear in the social skills department. We were both equally odd, so it was easy to get along well. My friend got too excited about things, and I had a habit of combusting small objects.
On the day Konohamaru was born Kiba and I played in the snow until dark, only stopping into his house long enough to pound down some ramen that Hanna had made. When it was dark enough that I couldn't walk home without getting lost or scared, Uncle Asuma came to get me.
"Your mom's having the baby, Moriko. We're going to go home and wait while Dad stays with her in the hospital." He said to me as we were walking home.
But, unfortunately for my uncle, I didn't like the idea of my mommy and grandpa getting to see the baby before me.
"I don't wanna go home, Uncle 'Suma. I wanna see the baby when it gets here." I told him. He looked exceedingly uncomfortable with the idea, though I still don't know if it was because he was squeamish, or if it was because he thought seeing a baby being born would freak me out.
" No sweetie, we're going home. You can see the baby when they get home." His response made my eyebrows furrow.
Now I don't like to brag, but I am fantastically, wonderfully good at being mad at people. I even have recognisable steps to my anger, or tantrums when I was little.
Step one: Repeat what you want. "I wanna see my mommy and the baby now!"
If that doesn't work, resort to Step two: Burn them to death with your glare of hate.
"Baby girl, stop looking at me like that. I'm just doing what's best for you."
Step three: Ignore and evade, make them feel like the scum of the earth by not talking to them. Walk slow, the slower the better.
Step four: Sit down and continue to ignore the subject of your anger.
Step five: Make a seen. Shout, holler, bellow, scream. Work in some tears if you can. The more yelling you do, the more attention you bring to yourself and the things you want, as well as to the person who is incurring your wrath.
Step six: Stop shouting. Use a quiet voice. Threaten the subject of your rage with something they fear. Threatening limbs is always excellent, though it is noticeably more effective when you have the power to make your threats a reality.
On a side note, steps three, four, and five can be bypassed if the need is urgent enough.
Luckily for Uncle Asuma, this was only a five step tantrum. The poor man attempted to shush me, but soon abandoned this effort in exchange for carrying me to the hospital to see my mother.
By the time we got to the hospital room, my mother was on her final push. My Uncle immediately turned a shade of green I had never seen before. I would later learn through Ino that this color is called moss green, a shade human beings only turn in times of extreme digestive turmoil.
He nodded his head in acknowledgement to Grandpa, who made a similar motion back, though his face was flooded with pain. My mother was gripping onto his had with strenght that rivaled Lady Tsunade's. They were both pointedly staring off into space, allowing me an unrestricted view of childbirth.
"It's a boy!" The nurse announced suddenly.
The baby was slimy and gross, and my mother didn't bother to look at him as she laid back down onto the bed. I clambered up onto the bed next to her as the nurse held him out to my mother. She took him, but didn't give him a second glance.
My mother, the idol of my childhood, the most beautiful person in my world, had fallen so far from grace, so far into grief that she couldn't even look at her newborn son. But it was not only him she didn't look at, she also seemed incapable of looking at me. It was as if her magnetic forces and my own were so opposite to each other that her eyes could not even turn towards me.
It was twelve at night when Uncle Asuma and Grandpa left to go home. As he said goodbye for the night, my uncle seemed a little nervous, as if he doubted mom's ability to take care of us. I fell asleep shortly after he left, curled into the plastic arm of the bed, while my mother still held the small bundle that was my brother.
Death was an abstract concept for me as a young child. I knew that my father had died, I knew he would never come home, but I did not I know he was dead. I did know I would never see him again, but I didn't understand it was because he was not alive, but buried in the ground in front of his headstone. He was the fifth Tanuki anbu to die in the line of duty, and I will never know how many came before him, because not everyone dies while they are on active anbu duty.
Part of the problem was that I never went to his funeral, never saw him in his coffin because anbu don't have funerals. The first funeral I went to unveiled the finality of death to me, and gave me a burden far greater than I had ever had, though that may have been because I was so very young.
I woke up in the hospital bed curled into my mothers side. It was the first time in the month since my father had died that she had allowed me to touch her without pushing me away. She was looking into the face of the bundle in her arms, holding my little brother so delicately it seemed as if he would break if she held him any tighter. Then, to my surprise, she looked at me and smiled, and in that moment, my mother was back.
"Hi momma," I said quietly, as if talking to loud would startle her. She looked at me with the most emotion I had ever seen in a person. Then, suddenly, she handed my brother to me.
He was small compared to the adults, and smaller than me, but he was still an armful for the four year old me. He smelled odd, it was definitely not a good smell, but he hadn't had a bath yet.
"He smells funny, Mama." I told her, looking to her for an explanation. She gave me a gentle, loving smile that I had not seen in ages.
"He's new to the world, Moriko. He doesn't smell like the things we are used to smelling." At the time it seemed like the perfect explanation, and I listened to her with the undivided attention a young girl gives her mother's worldly explanations.
His thick, black, messy Sarutobi hair stuck off his head at gravity defying angles. But to my young eyes I saw the miracle of young life, something I still recognise when I see other babies as well, but it is never quite the same as when the baby is part of your family.
"He's so pretty. What's his name?" For the first time my mother looked a little confused. She probably didn't think of naming him because she was so busy being consumed in grief.
"Why don't you name him something pretty, then?"
Now there were no mirrors in the hospital room, but I know my eyes must have been as big as Mt. Hokage, because I have seen the same look in the eyes of my little brother. It is the look of absolute delight that one can only really see in the eyes of young children. I got to name my little brother, all on my own! Not to mention I was allowed to give him a pretty name.
I must have sat for ages gazing at his squishy little face, with his small little eyes that looked like my father's, and a nose that would one way grow to be identical to my Uncle's. His hands were small and pale and soft, and one was curled into a little fist around my index, middle, and ring finger.
"Can we call him Konohamaru, Mama?" I asked. She nodded her head in affirmation.
"Why do you want to name him that, sweetie?"
I looked at her like she was silly for not realising my reasonings. I sighed in exasperation and then decided to explain it.
" Because he's pretty. And every morning when I go on a walk with Grandpa he looks around and says ' I love this country. This village is full of hope and strength, that's what makes it so beautiful,' I think Grandpa is getting kind of old. And the baby is a boy, so maru is on the end so everyone knows he's a boy." Little kid logic is great, isn't it.
Mom smiled sadly and looked at the clock, which I could almost read accurately. It was somewhere in between two and five o'clock in the morning. She kissed my head and then Konohamaru's before getting up out of the bed stiffly. I watched as she put on the winter kimono she came to the hospital in. It was a deep dusky pink that brought out the pink in her complexion, and the light brown of her eyes. Giving us one last lingering glance she said, " I love you two so much, don't forget that."
"Where are you going Mama?" Little Konohamaru squirmed in my arms slightly, just enough to force me to look down at him.
" I'm going to be with daddy, sweetie." She said wistfully. And when I looked back up she had gone, disappeared into the night.
They never found my mother's body, though not for lack of trying. I believe my grandfather had every available ninja, Genin through to Anbu looking for her, but she was never found. It was general consensus that she had thrown herself off the bridge crossing the Konoha river, and her body had been carried away by the strong current. They found the hair comb my father had given to her when she agreed to marry him on the rail of the bridge, right over the middle of the river.
They had met at that spot for the first time when they were both eighteen. By the time they were twenty he had proposed in the very same place. It meant a lot to both of them, so much so that my mother even had a little lullaby she used to sing to me about the river.
Her funeral must have been heartbreaking from a spectators point of view. For me it was a gut wrenching exercise in how to hold a seven pound baby in my four year old arms and bawl my eyes out at the same time.
The service was beautiful, i'm sure, but I can't actually remember what was said. It was raining, and Konohamaru and I were crying so loud I didn't even hear Uncle Asuma tell us it was time to go home.