It was hot, too hot for any sensible person to be doing any sort of labour. Unfortunately for Sakura, she didn't have much of a choice. Not if she wanted to avoid the whip.
Her life was all about costs and benefits, pros and cons. The sun burned her skin, but it didn't hurt as much as a beating would. So she forced herself to move forward in the lineup. Such was the life of a slave.
Others in the line groaned and moaned in their shackles as they slowly walked forward. But none complained, they wouldn't dare do that in front of the commanders, a fancy name for the people who the people who 'kept the slaves in check' for the keepers who owned them.
"Next!" a commander yelled. The line moved forward once again. They were waiting to hear which area they would be sent to work in for the day. There were four options for general slaves, slaves without an assigned family or 'job', they could assist in construction, clean up garbage or do other tasks that make the city more "aesthetically pleasing", act as messengers, or complete random other tasks that needed to be done that day. She often acted as a messenger. It was a "cushy" assignment physically, but she had to deal with a lot of stuck up citizens.
The person in front of her was told their task, garbage duty, and they walked off. Before they did, she attempted to stifle a yawn. Her baby brother had been up crying all night again.
She loved the little man, but boy was he loud. "Next," the commander called out. Why did he have to be so loud? Seriously, she was right there. Nevertheless, she stepped forward and held out her wrist, where her number was branded into her skin.
The man checked her wrist and noted it on a clipboard. But before he gave her her task, he turned to the woman beside him. "This one looks relatively unmarked. Still not used to seeing non-family slaves like that."
The woman nodded in agreement. "Tell me about it! Lord Minato's making us be way too soft on them. Ten years ago we were allowed to give them a good whipping whenever we felt like they needed a warning, but now we have to reserve it for punishments only. How are they going to learn discipline? Like, look at this one, barely a scratch on her! Where does she spend most of her time?"
The man flipped through a few pages on the clipboard. "Looks like she's usually a messenger, and rarely anything else."
"Ha! That explains it then. Running around delivering messages, the easiest job there is. Probably so used to it that any other job would seem too hard for the poor princess." The woman stated.
"Let's test out that theory." He turned back to Sakura. "You're going to be on construction today. Do you like that?"
Oh crap, they were talking to her. She felt herself freeze up a little. Sakura hated these situations, where it felt like anything she said was the wrong answer. What could she say? "I am willing and able to complete any task assigned to me," she replied, going with the response she hoped would get her in the least amount of trouble.
The man's eyes traveled up and down her body before turning back to the woman. "I think she might be scared of us, Anko."
Anko grinned and patted the whip attached to her belt. "As she should be. I get suspicious of any that don't show a little fear around me. What do you think about that, girlie?"
There was nothing she could say that could guarantee getting her off scot free. Why were they putting her in a situation like this? Why couldn't they just give her her stupid assignment and be done with it. She opened her mouth but couldn't force words to come out of it.
"You're making me hold up the line, Anko. Just go to do your job, girl," the man told her.
For once, she happily obliged. Without waiting to hear a response from Anko, she quickly fled the area. She hated people like Anko. Well, she hated most commanders, but people like Anko most of all. She was a woman Sakura would have hated to be around before Minato made the slavery reforms.
Not that things were so much better now, she thought as she went to her destination. The reforms had made a few things better like making it mandatory for slaves to get at least six hours of rest in a day (when that rest period happened was up to the keepers), and ensuring that slaves were fed enough so that none of them would starve. These changes were appreciated, but they didn't make their lives perfect either. They were still treated like garbage, still beaten and still given barely enough to survive. Yet citizens, especially keepers, acted like slaves should now act extremely grateful all the time since their lives were so 'easy' now.
After a few more minutes of walking she arrived at her destination. The main project they were currently working on was Minato's and Fugaku's statues. She didn't understand why all the lords and chiefs wanted to have their faces carved into the mountain, but they did so here they were.
Now where was the person who told everyone where they were supposed to go? She looked around but couldn't find anyone who fit the bill. Where could they be? It generally wasn't good for slaves if it looked like they were lollygagging.
After a few more seconds of searching the girl decided that it would be better to just ask someone. She turned to a nearby slave who was hauling lumber. "Excuse me," she said to them as she walked over. "Would you be able to tell me where the person we report to is?"
The person, a boy that looked about five years her junior, motioned to a spot underneath Minato's carving. "He's just underneath there. Right in the shade beside the supplies."
Sakura thanked him before walking over. As she got closer, she soon saw with surprise and a little relief that he was a Hyuga. One of the benefits of being a messenger was that she got to know things about the main families in the city. The Hyugas were known for being 'slave friendly'. Not that they were nice to slaves, but they didn't go out of their way to make their lives horrible. They tended to take a 'you work hard and we won't mistreat you' approach.
There were a couple of people in front of her waiting to hear about their placements. As she waited, she looked around at the area. It seemed like the people working on the carvings were divided up evenly between Minato's and Fugaku's faces. Minato was on the left and Fugaku was on the right, just like how it was presented ever since Hashirama and Madara.
Thankfully she looked back towards the line just in time to see the person in front of her leave. Things may have not gone well for her if it looked like she'd rather be dawdling than working. "Number?" The Hyuga asked her when he looked at her. She raised her wrist to show it to him. He scribbled something on his paper before studying her. "You're usually not assigned to this area are you?" She shook her head. "What area are you usually in?"
"I'm usually a messenger," she replied.
He let out a small grunt of annoyance. "Why do they insist on sending us the inexperienced ones? They just slow down progress." After releasing another groan, he said to her, "Assist the ones stabilizing the scaffolding and ladders for the Minato carving. Try not to make anything worse."
She nodded then went over to her destination. Ugh, she was not looking forward to this. At least she didn't have to be one of the people breaking the rocks. That always looked like the worst job to her.
Ten minutes later she was holding wood in place while others pounded nails into it. She was already sweating in the heat. With her free hand she wiped the growing beads off of her forehead.
"Faster! Put your backs into it!" The call was followed by a crap of a whip. Thankfully it was against the ground and not someone's back. She watched the slaves in front of the commander try to move faster.
Suddenly she felt the fixture she was holding shift a little. Crap, she had loosened her hold! Before it could move again, another pair of hands held it in place. She turned and saw a girl with buns in her hair grinning at her. Sakura smiled in appreciation at her. "Don't normally work in this area, do ya?" The girl whispered.
Sakura's smile dropped and she quickly looked around to see if any of the commanders had heard them. The girl giggled quietly. "You scare easily."
She couldn't help but frown a little. "Sorry for not wanting to get whipped!"
That only made the girl giggled more. "As long as we're quiet about it and don't make it obvious, they won't know. Besides, I'm on good terms with the Hyugas. Or at least, one of them."
This girl was clearly crazy and had a death wish. Sakura knew the smart thing was to just ignore her. She hadn't managed to avoid getting whipped for so long by being stupid. But still, maybe having someone to talk to would be nice. Maybe if she just tried to be super quiet, they could get away with it.
"Uh, okay. As long as you're careful," Sakura whispered as she glanced around at the commanders one more time. They all seemed preoccupied at the moment.
"Great, I knew you weren't the type to just blindly obey them! I'm Tenten," the girl told her.
Sakura felt compelled to correct her as she normally did just 'blindly' obey the keepers, but she liked being thought of as rebellious. "Sakura."
"Slave! Did I tell you to stop?" They both stopped and turned to the direction of the voice.
A commander was currently looking down at a man who had fallen down. His legs had probably buckled under the weight of the rock he had been carrying, which was currently beside him. Normally the commanders didn't do anything if you only fell, but they would get involved if you didn't immediately get back up. The poor man looked horrified, and quickly tried to scurry to his feet.
He was stopped by the commander stepping on his thin garb. "I didn't tell you that you could get up. Do you ever listen to orders?"
Sakura had to resist the urge to tighten her fists, but she did grit her teeth. She really wanted to get involved, at this point nothing the man could say could get him out of trouble. Ah, she hated feeling so useless. She knew there was nothing she could do could help him, but she still had to force herself to not go towards them.
Someone else apparently did not feel the same way. Just as the commander was taking out his whip, a boy appeared in front of the man. "Please! Don't hurt my dad."
"Oh no," Tenten whispered.
"I'll take his load. He's been feeling sick lately. Just please don't hurt him," the boy urged.
The commander paused for a moment before speaking. "You wish to take the place of your father?"
"Yes!"
He turned to the man. "Listen to that, you're going to let your own son do you work for you? You disgust me. And you." His gaze turned to the boy. "If you want to help your father, you can take his punishment instead. Slaves, listen up!" He called out, raising his voice. "This is what you happen when you defy us. Now watch."
The boy screamed as the whip hit him. The whip slashed against his skin, again and again and again. Sakura couldn't tear her eyes away as he wailed and cried out. The lashes continued until his wounds were gushing with blood. Then the commander yelled at all of them to get back to work.
She and Tenten didn't talk after that. Sakura knew that she should feel numb to this now, this was hardly the first beating that she had witnessed. But she hated that they were treated like this, and hated those who were doing this to them. She just wanted to get away, to escape this life and become a medic somewhere far away. Somewhere where they didn't treat people like animals, no, worse than animals.
They worked for several more hours on the carvings. When they were about to finish, Sakura gazed up at their progress. As much as she hated their stupid faces, it was nice to see the fruits of their labour come together. The outline of Minato's face was complete and now they just had to work on the facial features and details.
"You're so slow, Sasuke!"
"Slow down, dobe."
Sakura didn't have to look up to know who was speaking. Naruto Uzumaki, son of Lord Minato and next in line to be Hokage. Close to him was apparently Sasuke Uchiha, son of Chief Fugaku and now next in line to head the Uchiha family since Itachi had left a year ago. The two most powerful teens in the realm, which wasn't a particularly comforting idea.
"Come on baka, I want to show you my new technique!"
Please don't do anything stupid, she silently asked as she held a ladder in place. They had enough things to worry about without those two making things worse. Please practice your stupid magic somewhere else, preferably somewhere in the middle of nowhere where they couldn't break anything.
"Not now, dobe."
"Come on, scared I'll show you up?"
Sasuke snorted. "Not likely."
"Well I will! See, Raseng-"
There were a few muffled sounds and words, like they were fighting. Then an explosion went off, causing her and everyone around them to jump. The scaffolding above her creaked and moaned, and the ladder shifted out of her grip and began to fall. The person on it yelped as they lost their footing and scrambled for something to hold onto. Sakura and Tenten had to grab onto him to stop him from plummeting to the ground below.
Once he was safe on her platform she released him and looked around to see the damage the blast had caused. The Minato carving seemed fine for the most part, though the scaffolding was somewhat dented. The Fugaku carving however, was a different story. A large chunk of rock had broken off from the area that was supposed to be his left eye. All the wood and metal frames close to the point of impact were destroyed.
"Naruto!" The Hyuga keeper growled out.
"Sorry my bad. Well, our bad technically," the blond in question said sheepishly while scratching the back of his head. How could he so nonchalant about this? Sakura didn't know much about construction, but she knew that this kind of damage could take weeks to repair.
Sasuke didn't even respond, like he refused to involve himself or something. Some of the wood was burnt, a sign that fire magic was used, and he was flexing his hand. Uchihas were known for their fire magic, so he had obviously been involved. Did he feel like he was above taking responsibility or something?
Before the Hyuga could respond, Naruto scurried off. Sasuke made a show of rolling his eyes before he followed his friend. Ah! Did those two not care about all the extra work they just created? Work that the slaves would have to carry out, because they obviously didn't have enough to do already. And at least Naruto, the clueless selfish idiot that he was, at least kinda admitted fault (though he still didn't attempt to do anything about it). Sasuke on the other hand, clearly contributed to the incident, but didn't acknowledge it. Classic Uchiha arrogance. The future of the Land Hidden in the Leaves was in such great hands. They were all doomed.
The sound of someone gasping in pain pulled her away from her thoughts. Her gaze flew to the source of the noise and she saw a man crushed underneath the rubble. Thankfully a couple of people were already there helping him. Poor man, if his legs were crushed he'd likely be "euthanized", since to the keepers a lame slave was a useless slave. Hopefully he didn't have a family. What a horrible way to go out, all because of a couple of idiots that didn't care about those who worked so hard but were treated like they were nothing.
She noticed that the Hyuga and a couple of commanders were discussing what to do. Thankfully they were close enough to let her hear snippets of the conversation.
"Have to work longer."
"Their break is mandatory."
"Renegotiate."
"Can't afford this right now."
"Work them harder."
Oh great. She understood why they would make decision, but her body was already actively groaning in protest. Hopefully Sasuke and Naruto would get punished somehow for this.
The remainder of the day was spent trying to clear the rubble. After a few hours most of it was removed and the rest should be gone by the next day. Sakura was seriously hoping that she would go back to being a messenger after this, physical labour was really not her forte. Also being a messenger made her feel like she was informed, as she often got to hear tidbits of gossip. Even if she never acted on the information, knowledge was power and thus made her feel important.
The walk home was a long one, as the slave area was a little ways outside the city. She tried to move quickly as the trip back and forth was included in the rest period. However something made her pause as she neared the gates. On the road there was a crinkled poster that read 'Everyone Is Human, Free The Slaves'.
That was odd, she wondered who made it. It was illegal for slaves to promote anti slavery propaganda, so only the bravest slaves would attempt it. Perhaps one of the slave friendly families put it up. The ones that were the most 'friendly' were the Naras, the Yamanakas, and the Akimichis. But as nice as they could be to their slaves, she didn't see any of them actually being anti slavery. Who else could it be?
Well, whoever it was should consider doing more than just put up posters. If slaves would ever be free, it would take a lot more than paper to make it happen.
Minato found himself clenching his jaw for the nth time today. "How many times must I say no?"
"And how many times must I say that it's our best option?" Fugaku demanded as he paced around the throne room.
Minato's fist hit the arm of his chair. "We are not going to kill hundreds of people."
"Hundreds of infant slaves," Fugaku corrected as he paused from his pacing to face his Lord. "And if you have a better solution I would love to hear it."
"We need more time," Minato reasoned.
"You always need more time, you're just stalling because you don't want to do what needs to be done. The slaves are overpopulating, they have more infants now than they ever had before. Sure it is not an issue now, but in ten years we will be overrun. We won't have enough resources to handle them. And what if they decide to try to get free? They may just have enough members to attempt a revolt."
Keep calm, keep calm, Minato tried to tell himself. "You're still talking about murdering people."
"You're still not providing an alternative," Fugaku argued.
"Let's say we do as you propose. Do you really expect the slaves to just go along with this, to just wave goodbye to their dying babies? This more than anything else may inspire a rebellion. And there are quite a few citizens who would not take the news well," Minato said as he waved his hands to emphasize his point.
"We don't have to tell the citizens, we can carry it out at night. As for the slaves, it is a risk we'll have to take. They've been quite obedient as of late, and if needed, we can increase their disciplinary measures."
"That would only make them want to rebel more," Minato responded.
"And you're being too soft on them," Fugaku growled out. "The more lenient you are on them, the more they'll think they can get away with. Give them enough handouts and they'll start acting like citizens."
"The reforms I've put in place have only improved their work performance," Minato pointed out. "And there have been less punishments given out."
"It's also been putting more strain on the keepers," said Fugaku.
"Yes," Minato said dryly. "When you treat humans like humans and not objects, it does require a bit of effort."
Fugaku's eyes narrowed. "Your actions have made you appear soft to many of the main families. Like you don't want to carry out any discipline. And based on the actions of your son today, I am beginning to agree with them."
Minato stiffened defensively. "If memory serves, your own son was involved in that incident as well."
"And he is being held accountable, which is more than I can say for yours," Fugaku responded. "But I digress. The point is, we need to crack down on them. If we do not take action, those slaves while die in a decade or two when we don't have enough food to support them all. This way we won't have to our resources strained. We can't afford to look weak to the other nations. If you do not issue the command, I will."
Minato stood up. "You don't have the authority," he growled out.
Fugaku froze and the look in his eyes was deadly. "Don't I?"
Minato held his ground. "No, you don't. In case you've forgotten, yes you are the second most powerful person in this country. But the keyword there is second. You can do many things, command the army, approve acts, and even enact laws. But you cannot override my authority."
"Those are dangerous words," Fugaku said in a low tone.
"But they are true," Minato responded.
"The Uchihas are the strongest family in Konoha. Hypothetically, if there was another coup...things would not go well."
If Minato had less self control he would have lashed out at the Uchiha for threatening him like that. "Would you really consider civil war and the death of your family over this?"
"If the way you are handling this choice is indicative of the future, I will not have to risk much. The other families will act before I do anything."
Fugaku was treading the line very closely, however his words did contain some truth. Minato did not think that he was 'coddling' the slaves as others put it, but others in Konoha seemed to think so. If he wanted to implement positive change, he would have to do so slowly. As for this decision, he felt like he was being forced into a corner. It just felt wrong, no matter how Fugaku argued in favour of it. But what other choice did he have? He did not want to risk too much infighting between the families, especially since the other nations may see that as weakness and pounce.
"Fine," he said with gritted teeth, "We will carry out the proposal starting tomorrow night." Fugaku showed the infamous Uchiha smirk. "However," Minato dropped his tone. "If you ever talk to me like again, you will regret it, and you may find yourself with a lot less power than you had before."
Fugaku narrowed his eyes, but did not say anything before he slipped out of the room to instruct the commanders.
Hey everyone. So this is a tad different than my other fics. It's going to be on the darker side of things for the most part. And I'm just going to put it out there now, many if not most characters will be at least a little ooc. That being said, I hope you guys enjoy it. Please let me know what you think.