Sometimes, I think I'm dreaming. I think I must have fallen asleep on a bus or train on the way home from school. I did that once you know. It had been winter and around five in the evening. You know when it's nighttime outside but it isn't exactly night? Not really anyway. I remember waking up after the doors closed at my stop, jarred awaked by the train pulling off from the station.
I often think, 'soon it will be my stop again'. I'll wake up and go home.
Wolves
"Senju Hashirama, Senju Tobirama, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Namikaze... Namikaze..." You have to know all four of the Hokages. It's pretty much rule number one. What genin or ninja or even average citizen doesn't know the famed leaders of their village? "Namikaze..." But he doesn't know. He's only a child after all. A mop of filthy brown hair and dull brown eyes flickering back and forth. He clenches his tiny fist and scrunches his eyes as if that will magically conjure up the answer. Or maybe he's hoping he'll just disappear.
He's probably five. He's probably, no definitely some throw away human. The type of person that goes missing all the time, but no one really notices because no one really cares. We're all throw aways really. The stench of sweat, muck and filth clinging to our skin. Dirt entrenched under our nails, bodies a heap of healing scabs and feet worn with callouses. Even so, we're still supposed to know.
"Did you forget?" The voice is deceptively sweet. It reminds me of my mother or someone I used to know. It's suppose to be calming. Like our classroom a theater show of elevated rows of seats looking downward like a coliseum, all painted in baby blues and cremes. But it's not. It's a voice that's lured one too many foolish children to their doom. It's a voice that promises hope and then preys on you. A voice that always speaks with an undercurrent of danger. Always.
The blow is viscious and fast for children not yet genin to follow. The boy, wrong answer, hits the far wall with a sickening crack. Someone behind me whimpers and I think I might have peed a little. At first we think he's dead, he wouldn't be the first. Crumpled against the wall he doesn't move and then, there, barely the soft rise and fall of his chest.
Still alive I guess. "Why can't you all remember simple things? Why must you force me to repeat the same things over and over again?" Sensei is a kind looking man. He had Sandy blonde hair and friendly green eyes. His smile is soft with a dimple denting his left cheek. He helps old ladies carry their bags and passes out candy. But I can't forget, you can't forget. He's a monster.
"Senju Hashirama, Senju Tobirama, Sarutobi Hiruzen and Namikaze Minato." He looks at us expectantly and we all hurry to repeat him a chorus of fear and submissiveness. 'Wrong answer' stirs. He chokes on a sob and with a shaking hand tries to pull himself up against a desk. Sensei walks over behind him, his steps are slow and deliberate. He reaches down and helps 'wrong answer' to his feet, he stumbles, dizzy from the blow. He tries to step away but retches splattering sensei's feet.
The class holds a collective breath and then the bell. "Well now I thinks it's time for lunch. If I were you I'd remember who the Hokages were. I'll quiz a few of you randomly after lunch. Please don't make me punish you." For a moment the look in his eye is as sharp as broken glass. He smiles and walks away then, the squelch of his sandals echoing down the hall. For a moment we breath, uneasiness in the stale air.
I think I must be asleep. I must be sleeping as if in a coma. At first I couldn't really remember anything. Just blurry images, muffled sounds and hunger. Instinctively I knew I was small and weak. Instinctively I searched for a warm breast and milk. It wasn't long before I realized that there wasn't any of that. That it would never be. Most of us were accidents. Some ninja knocking up some whore. An unwed mother here, an unplanned pregnancy there. Unwilling or willing the end result was the same. A tiny child, another unwanted mouth to feed, another brat dumped on an orphanage doorstep. The orphanage was a modest building. A bathroom, kitchen/dining room, matrons office/room and handful of identical rooms and green cots lined with moth eaten blankets. Blankets that were too thin to keep us properly warmed in the winter and to heavy for the blazing summers.
You have to sleep under your blanket though least your eater alive by the mosquitoes. Even then, when we didn't know any better, when I didn't know any better we were being groomed. It's always just enough to keep you alive. Not enough so you'll get complacent.
I don't remember how I knew I wasn't home anymore. That perhaps my memories of skyscrapers and modern public transportation stretched out like a spiders web wasn't the dream. It just happened. Hanging outside pushing aside the heap of huddled children desperately clinging to the only patch of shade, from the only tree, I saw it one day. Arms back, body slightly angled to allow the wind to cut over or around instead of buffer you jumping from roof to roof on the express route.
Ninja's actual ninja's. I didn't think of Naruto though because this wasn't Konoha or Fire country. This wasn't Sand or Mist or even Rain. It was hell and I was going to die here.
Six of us at a table five bowls of rice gruel four glasses of milk thinned with water. Exactly four complete meals. Enough for four to have a full meal. Two to pick at what's left. One bowl of gruel. Someone was going to go without. Each of us hungry. Each of us aching. Eyes on the prize, flickering, sizing up the competition. Survival of the fittest. Who is hungry enough? Who wants it the most?
I needed rice today. I had failed to acquire some for a few days, only lapping at my milk but that may have been a good thing. I was hungry today and I had a plan. A plan born of necessity, a plan all the same. The matron of our orphanage was busy handing out the rest of the bowls. As a rule no one was allowed to start without her say so. The last time someone had tried, he was soundly whipped and went without for a week. He had to have one of the others help him drink he was so tired and weak.
Poor fool, and I'm talking about the person who helped him. I can remember a few lines about bonds and friendship making you stronger, what a bunch of bullshit. The world I came from, perhaps the dream, people killed with or without prejudice. People took what they wanted, what they could get. I myself have ignored many a people in terrible throws of poverty who had thrown a pride begging in the streets.
It wasn't that I was rich. No, even my family struggled, but I was better off and maybe that made me arrogant. She was almost done now glancing at the clock in the corner. Less than a minute now. Hands were splaying themselves against the table. Chairs scraping a bit back to make the first move. If I wasn't so distracted by my hands gripping the splintered edge of the wood, I might have noticed. I might have avoided my checkered future. I might have saw the first time Sensei came to the orphanage.
"Begin." Children were scrambling. Hands reaching, a girl even knocked a kid in the face. Hot blood spurting down his nostrils but he was only momentarily stunned, the promise of hot food a strong lure. I gripped the edged of the table tight and flipped it. Rice and milk crashing to the floor. My peers turning to face me in utter confusion and horror on how I could waste food.
But I didn't waste it. He who is hungry eats or she. On my knees, utensils forgotten, hands scooping up and shoving rice into my mouth. Without a care that it had hit the floor. Without a care at my appearance. A stomach growled, maybe, and the others were soon with me on the floor. Eating and licking. Snapping our jaws at one another if we strayed to close. I'm sure we looked like animals. Dogs or wolves.
And Sensei who was watching, who I didn't see, smiled.
Sensei's name was Hakuyo. Whether it was his real name I don't know. It doesn't even matter because we all just call him sensei-san. But I first met him in room six. That was my designated room. Far to the left of the only window. It was enough to catch a mild breeze, good ventilation and dodge a multitude of insects that came in from said window. They always went for the closest body.
I was lying on my cot. Not really doing anything other than waiting for my stomach to settle when he came it. My meal group shared this room with me. Allergy kid and later 'Wrong answer' who I wouldn't actually ever speak to. Hakuyo, sensei smiled, it was the first time I saw that dimple. He reached into his pocket pulled out a sucker. He moved it around his mouth a bit just watching the reactions of us filthy orphans.
"How would you like to be Konoha ninja?"
Except this isn't Konoha. I don't know where this is.
First rule. Know the Hokages. What Konoha ninja doesn't know the Hokages? Second rule, you're either a dog or wolf. Wolves survive. Even lone wolves bite. Dogs are loyal, obedient, but beat an animal enough and it can become rabid. Dogs have teeth, dogs have fangs, ergo a dog can become a wolf and a wolf can disguise itself as a dog.
Third rule. Remember your name. My name is Calm. My name is Shizuka. If you ask me I'll tell you I'm a Konoha ninja. I am a Konoha ninja, I have to be a Konoha ninja.
If I'm still asleep. I hope I wake up soon.
So this is an SI OC based on the premise of a sleeper agent cell soon to be living in Konoha. A lot of it's left purposely ambiguous because even the main character doesn't know where she comes from. Anyway thanks for reading!