A/N: Here is a story that has been floating around in my head for a few years. I finally decided to put it down on paper (computer, whatever.) I've read through it a few times but my editing skills are almost nonexistent. Please don't be overly cruel to me. Own nothing recognizable.
Her early memories all center around her father. Him teaching her to tie her mane of wild white hair back before letting her climb to her hearts desire. Climbing is something they do together. At first her father hovers below, before he teaches her to stick herself to the tree. (By this time she can stick enough leaves to herself that her father calls her sapling.) The trees offer freedom and excluding her father, Tomoko feels safest in the branches of a tree, they feel like family.
Tomoko is taught about chakra from her father, and how to stick leaves to her nose. She learns that everyone's chakra feels different but families feel similar. A Nara's chakra feel like the relief of entering a cool shadow under a large tree during peak summer heat, calm and smooth with a hidden depth, before adding on the personal hints making every signature unique. Tomoko, can't feel her chakra, it's too much a part of her to ever be able to separate and analyze it. She likes to think her chakra feels likes her father's: steady like the hashirama trees she climbs, with roots cool under the gritty earth and dancing leaves rejoicing in the light. The feel of her father's chakra is a security blanket which never leaves Tomoko in her early years. Her father is never far and Tomoko doesn't want that to ever change.
Most of her memories of the academy are suppressed. She doesn't want to remember that year and a half. She doesn't want to remember the fear of something new or the cruelty of children. So she doesn't (Just because her eyes are red doesn't make her an Uchiha. They all feel of embers waiting for a spark. Why would she want to be one of those hot heads anyways?) What she does remember is family. She remembers the rough calluses of her father's hand as it held her's on her first day. The chapped kiss on her forehead with the promise of okonomiyaki when he picks hers up. Her reluctance when he lets go of her hand to usher her towards the door. That was the first time her father let her go. For one reason or another first still hurts the most.
The classroom is filled with other children, faces blurring together after the time. Tomoko sits next an Inuzuka girl with a grey fur-ball entrenched in the girl's lap. She will soon learn that her bench mate is Inuzuka Mimi, who feels like the elation during a run, dirt under claws, and the contentment of pack. The fur-ball on Mimi's lap is composed two nearly identical nin pups Ichi and Ni. ("look its not that difficult to tell them apart" Mimi says in exasperation a year later. "All of Ichi's nails are black nails except for one and Ni has two black toenails on every paw." It takes some time, but Tomoko develops her own way to differentiate the pups.) It isn't an immediate friendship, Tomoko is not used to other children and Mimi is several years older. A few weeks in Tomoko starts to bring toys for the puppies because they are always calmer when they have something to chew. In Mimi's expert opinion, anyone who spoils her dogs is worth getting to know.
The girls bond over the dogs, and then their mutual dislike for homework, then soon Mimi invites Tomoko to the Inuzuka kennels her mother runs. The girls still have arguments and over time they will grow apart. But Mimi is her first friend, and first friendships are family and impossible to forget. Besides there are much worse people Tomoko could choose to befriend.
It in in the academy that Tomoko begins to hone her talent for impersonation. Before she only had her father, the academy offers new people, with various ticks and voices, and Tomoko realizes she can be more than just her father. A week in she can copy her teachers physicality, days later the voice followed shortly by the teacher's handwriting. Mimi only uses her friend's talents for good. (The girls only get caught once with duplicate test key. They don't get caught a second time.) When a basic henge is added to Tomoko's repertoire, she know, this is what she is made for. (The academy henge is week and easily disrupted by a flair of external chakra. Tomoko spends most of her time at the academy and a few months after perfecting a physical henge.)
Her talent is more of a curse during her Taijutsu class, which is undoubtedly her worst subject. Flawless recall of her instructor's forms does little good when the rest of her class doesn't follow the script. The first few months find Tomoko with more bruises than she can count an appreciation for the art of dodging. She subconsciously ready body language, but with her father's help she learns to translate the shift of hips to an incoming punch. It takes time but before she leaves the academy she masters the ability of not being where a hit will land. She still has issues landing hits and she always will, but she can win her spars by dodging her opponents to the point of exhaustion before landing her only hit. Mimi claims she is cheating, but ninja.
Tomoko is the youngest in her class by several years. She remembers people telling her about a mandatory entrance exam, so she know she must have taken it, but that like many other occurrences the actual exam is lost to her. Later she'll learn she skipped ahead a few years, war time standards being what they are Konohagakure needs to churn out all the semi competent genin they can. Once in the academy her father returns to active missions. This is the first time she has ever spend more than a few hours away from her father. During his first overnight mission, Tomoko spends the night at the Inuzuka compound cuddled up with Ni in Mimi's room,. The pup does its best but isn't nearly as comforting as her father tucking her in.
Most of her short time in the academy passes in the blur of monotony, (she goes to class, she trains, she goes home, repeat) except for when it doesn't. On a cheerful June morning, Senju Toshi leave for his final mission like he leaves for all his others,with a kiss to his daughter's forehead and a promise of okonomiyaki upon his return home. ("...and would you like anything special for your birthday? It's only a week away") Try as she might, Tomoko doesn't remember this. This parting blends with all the other times her father left her. There is no cosmic sign that this time is different. Nothing that says "pay attention, this is the last time you'll see your father alive."
Tomoko is practicing her calligraphy in Mimi's house when a man knocks and kneels across from her. She greets him as expected but does not pay attention past recognizing that sunlight is captured in his spiky hair and he feels like an eye of a hurricane, a calm center surrounded by so much power. She is perfecting his poise ( effortless but with the promise of power if riled,) before her name pulls her attention to his words. "...tomoko-chan, your father was killed…" (her world stops) ".. .by Iwa-nin on the border. He protected his comrades and held them off long enough for me to arrive. I'm sorry I didn't arrive in time to save him as well. I wish I could bring better news on your birthday." The man is still talking, reaching a hand out to comfort the small child, before she jerks away. The puddle of ink spreading over the floor. When did the inkwell fall? She is being handed something but she can't process anything right now. Her whole world is imploding, so she implodes with it. The doesn't notice the man leave. She doesn't heed Mimi and the pups rushing to and enveloping her. There is no recognition that time is still moving, but when she glances at the table her father's forehead protector is places on the surface.
Tomoko tires to spend the first night in the branches of the lone hashirama tree outside of her family home, but Ichi alerts Mimi and Mimi alerts her parents, so she spends the night in a nest with Mimi and her pups. Time passes, but she doesn't. She doesn't live, she simply exists. Her father's forehead protector is tied around her neck, the feel of his chakra is weaker every day. Tomoko is granted a leave of absence from school but she attends class anyways. What else is she to do? The routine is something comforting when she will never feel her father again. Mimi and her parents try to help. They open their home and their kennels but there are some things a proper puppy pile* can't fix.
There is a memorial service for her father and the other boy who died during the concurrent mission. (Her father's team was acting as a diversion while the boy's completed the objective.) It is at a stone Tomoko has never wanted to see before in a seldom used training ground. It registers that the attendance is small, ( Mimi, her parents, and their dogs join Tomoko, While the man with sunshine for hair is joined by two kids twice her age.) but tomoko is unable to pay attention to anything other than Ni in her arms, so alive and warm, and her father's name on the stone. Nothing else is important. It finally feels like an end.
Tomoko does not register when Mimi and her parents leave her to her mourning. Hours pass before Ni has enough and demands to be released. Tomoko sets the puppy on the ground, with a pat on the head, before she realizes that she is not as alone as she expects to be. The boy who feels like prelude to a lightning storm, with a face mask and silver hair, is still here, gazing unflinchingly at the stone. His one visible eye is dry, unlike her two. They don't speak, they barely acknowledge each other, but there is a definite solace grieving with someone who is just as lost at she. Mimi tries, but her friend still has her parents and doesn't know how to relate. Tomoko is alone now. The realization that her father is never going to catch her again is finally settling in and Tomoko doesn't know how to handle the devastation. Ni is pacing at her side, anxious to return home, so Tomoko steps up to the stone to trace her father's name. She whispers her goodbyes before letting Ni lead her back to the Inuzuka compound where she will be living until she becomes a genin. Tomoko graduates one month later. She is neither the youngest to graduate, nor the quickest, both of those honors go to Hatake Kakashi, but she thinks her father would have been proud.
* a proper puppy pile has a minimum of 5 dogs