Yes I know the title has nothing to do with story, so deal with it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Kishimoto-sama (and Sasuke) does. All I own is the plot and Sayoko.
Sayona awoke to the sound of her three brothers yelling, in other words an ordinary day. She stepped out of bed and stretched. She winced as the newest half-healed cuts on her arms, from her brothers' target practice from the previous day and they still hurt. Usually she healed quickly but her father always put some weird purple liquid on the kunai knives or the shuriken and that kept the wounds open. Her brothers' yells increased in volume and she could pick out her father's voice among them. "Alright, alright, I'm coming", she muttered. She quickly jumped out of her white nightgown and stepped into her day clothes, which were in the family colour of brown. It looked horrible on her but it looked good on everyone else, probably because of her colouring. She had deathly pale skin, bright neon blond hair, eyes bluer than the sea and sky together and two scratch-shaped birthmarks on each cheek. Her family of her three brothers, her mother and father all had eyes and hair the colour of mud along with slightly tanned skin. Not for the first time Sayona wondered why she was so different. She sighed and ran downstairs.
She stepped into the kitchen and, turning to her father, a frightening looking man, and said meekly, "Gomen, Father".
There was a moment of silence then her father hit her across the face with enough force to knock her to the ground.
Sayona lay on the floor, holding back tears. In her father's eyes, tears were a sign of weakness, so she picked herself up and went to prepare the family's breakfast. Now this wasn't a rare occurrence, her getting hit to the floor. Father and now Sato-nii-sama-senpai, the eldest of them, always hit her, for any damn reason at all, she thought wryly, usually when Father had drunk a lot of sake. Toke-nii-chan-senpai shot her a sympathetic smile. Toke was always nice to her, but he couldn't do much to help her just like Mother.
The family ate breakfast in silence, but Sayona could feel something in the air, as though something was about to happen, something bad. The three boys went to the garden to train, Father went to work and Sayona and her mother cleaned away the breakfast.
"Saya, please, stop", begged Mother. Sayona stopped. Mother, in fact, almost no one called her Saya anymore.
"Stop what, Mother?" she enquired.
"Defying your father like that, it really annoys him ...and hurts me" said Mother, taking Sayona's face in her hands.
"I'm sorry for hurting you, but I didn't mean to. I just overslept."
"Very well" Mother answered brusquely, dropping her hands.
Once they finished cleaning up, Sayona went to practice her music. She self-taught herself piano and the guitar but the family only knew about the piano. She was supposed to being some old dull piece, but, since Mother was going out to her friend's house and the boys and Father were out training, she would practice whatever she wanted. Her favourites were "At the beginning with you" and "Journey to the Past" from Anastasia and a piece she composed herself, which she called "The Storm". Later she went to do some drawing. She was an excellent artist, but there was something she always drew when her attention swayed. It was always the same thing, a boy about her age and her height. He had spiky blond hair, the same shade as hers, bluer than blue eyes and three scratch-shaped marks on his face. It was strange, but she felt like, although she never met him and doubted he even existed, she felt some strange… connection to him.
After dinner she went up to her room to, basically, daydream. She debated whether to go up onto the roof from her room, as there was a hatch that led to the roof. It was where she practiced her guitar and, in her opinion, was the best view of her hometown, the Village Hidden in the Mist.
There was a huge bang from downstairs and Mother burst into her room with a backpack in her hands. In a frenzy, she started throwing things into it, her clothes, her sketch books; the outfit grandmother had given her on her last visit before she died, everything.
"Mother, what's the matter?" Saya asked.
"You have to get out of here!"
"B-but why?"
Mother stopped for one second and shoved the backpack into Saya's hands. She bent down so she was at eye level with her.
"Sayona Okinawa, you are adopted. We adopted you when you were four days old. You have a brother in Kohona, The Village Hidden in the Leaves in the Land of Fire. Your real name is Sayoko Uzumaki. There is a letter in the backpack that you must give to the Hokage, the leader of the village. Understand?"
Saya, or should we say Sayoko, nodded. She was shaking; it was all happening so fast. There was a shout from downstairs. Both of them run to the top landing to see what had happened. It was a bloodbath. Toke, Ginjiro and Father lay on the floor in a pool of blood. Sato was the only one left standing in front of two men dressed in black cloaks with red clouds and large straw-like hats.
"Kisame, my friend, why?" begged Sato.
Saya gasped. Kisame had been Sato's best friend and fellow Swordsman of the Mist. He had visited any times but every time he always freaked her out because he looked insanely like a fish with gills and everything. But he had vanished a few years ago.
"I have no quarrel with you, it is the girl we want" Kisame replied coldly, pointing at Saya with his sword, Samehada.
"No!" shouted Mother and ran down in front of Sato. With a flick of his wrist that was almost invisible, knocked them down to the ground where they moved no more. Saya was frozen on the stairs with fear. Kisame started towards the stairs but his partner held him back.
"Wait", he said, his voice colder than ice, "Let me".
"But Itachi…" Kisame replied.
The man named Itachi lifted his hat to reveal his face. His eyes were the first thing she saw, they were a deep burgundy red with the pupil twisted into a strange triangular shape.
"Run, girl, run. Run and spare your pitiful life. You will always have this family's blood on your hands, you cowardly child" his voice rang though the room, chilling her blood.
A heartbeat (or was it much more?) past, then Saya opened her mouth and screamed. She ran back towards her room. Still holding the backpack, she jumped out of the window. Moving the backpack to her back, she took to her heels and ran like she had never run before towards the bridge leading out of the village. She kept screaming as she ran, because whenever she stopped to draw breath, the tears flowed down her face blocking her vision. She stopped just outside the village, collapsed on the damp grass and cried herself to sleep.
She woke the next day feeling strangely tired and quiet. A strand of her long hair slid in front of her face. Saya looked at it, slightly surprised. She was struck by a sudden idea. At the same time she grabbed a kunai from the case. She grabbed fistfuls of her hair and sliced through it. Now her elbow length hair now tickled her just beneath her ears. While she was at it, she ducked behind a tree and changed into the diamond blue jumper and skirt that was her grandmother's final gift to her. She placed the backpack on her back once more and started walking in the rough direction that The Village Hidden in the Leaves was. She wasn't sure it was for certain, but Tazuna, the bridge builder had been there and had told her about it.
She travelled for three days and three nights, her only companion a small, wounded fox that had followed her. At night though, her mind continued to show her the last moments of her family's life, the blood, the shouts, the cold red eyes of the man Itachi. When she saw the bloodlust in those eyes, lust for her blood to be spilt, she woke with a jolt. On the morning of the third day Saya could see, just ahead the forest thinning. I must be close, she thought joyously. In the same second her stomach rumbled. She groaned, she had not eaten at all for the last three days. Saya looked at the little vixen, which she had named Akana (meaning red), at her ankles. Akana looked back, as if to say "farewell" and slunk into the trees. Saya watched her leave and sighed. There was nothing else but to keep going.
She stepped out of the forest into a clearing, with a river alongside. There was a tall, black stone near the edge of the clearing and three tree stumps that were bigger than her in a row. She walked to the stone and crouched to look at it properly. She tilted her head to the side slightly, that was odd, and it was covered with names.
"Who are these people?" She whispered.
"These are the names of the heroes of our village", announced a voice behind her.
Saya jumped up in surprise and bowed towards the direction of the voice. When she looked up, she was astonished at the sight of the man that had spoken. He was young, probably only a year or two older than Nii-sama-sempai had been, with gray hair and his headband with the Hidden Leaf Village symbol on it, tilted to hide his left eye.
"H-heroes? What kind of heroes?" Saya enquired of the man.
"Well… the dead kind. Those who died in the line of duty, including my best friend" he replied.
"Oh…., I'm ...I'm sorry".
"Thank you. By the way, who are you? I've never seen you here before." He asked, glancing at her.
Saya twisted her fingers together, wondering how to answer.
"Well…. I was raised under the name Sayona Okinawa, but I discovered recently that my name is actually Sayoko Uzumaki. But, if you want, you can call me Saya as a compromise. And what's your name?" She smiled at him.
The man was silent for so long, Saya thought he had not heard her. She opened her mouth to repeat herself, when he replied,
"Did you say your name was Uzumaki?" he questioned in a low voice, not meeting her eyes.
"Umm, yeah. Why?" Saya enquired, tilting her head to one side.
"Oh, no reason. And by the way, my name is Kakashi Hatake."
"Kakashi-san, that's a nice name."
"And so, Saya, where are you from? You don't seem to be very familiar with Kohona so I assume you come from a different country." Kakashi's visible eye turned into an upside-down "U" as he smiled at her.
"Umm, well I was raised in Nami no Kuni, the Land of Waves, so I suppose that's where I'm from but I was told that I was born in Kohona, so I'm a bit confused about where I come from. I also have a family member living somewhere in Kohona, so, yeah, I guess I'm from two different countries." Saya shrugged. "An older brother" she said, in reply to Kakashi's questioning look, "but I don't know what he looks like, what his name is or anything!" Saya sighed and hung her head. She looked up in surprise at Kakashi laying his hand on her shoulder in comfort. She smiled up at him, although now her head was spinning from hunger. Next thing she knew she was surrounded by darkness, falling, falling.
She woke up staring at Kakashi who was crouching worriedly over her.
"Sorry about that, Kakashi-san", she said sitting up, "I suppose that's what I get for only eating air sandwiches for three days".
"Well, if you haven't eaten in three days, then I'll treat you, what would you like?"
Saya stared at him. What was he doing offering a complete stranger food? Kakashi gently took her wrist and led her to the nearby streets.
Three days with only the company of a fox made Saya feel very self-conscious walking though the Kohona streets. Every person in the streets stared at her and whispered behind their hands. Saya felt a dull red flush creep up her neck to her cheeks and ears. As Kakashi led her to a dango shop, her eyes lit up. Dango was her second favourite food behind kashiwa-mochi, a type of rice ball. As she was about to tuck into the sweet and sour dango, Kakashi asked "I suppose, you were wondering why I'm treating you to dango?" Saya nodded.
"Well, it's because I think we have met before. You see, about twelve years ago, my teammate Rin and I were ordered to bring a newborn girl to Nami no Kuni right after the Nine Tailed Fox attacked. The demon was sealed inside a young boy but a second demon attacked at the village at the same time, an eight tailed fox. That fox was sealed within the girl that we brought to Nami no Kuni and I believe that girl was you". Kakashi said his eye completely serious. "And I believe the boy that the Nine Tailed Fox was sealed within is your brother. His name is Naruto Uzumaki".
Just then a blond haired boy walked by. Saya gasped, this was the boy she had been drawing for years! "Ah, speak of the devil, Naruto" smiled Kakashi. The boy turned and waved "Hey Kakashi-sensei ", he tilted his head slightly at the sight of Saya "Who's the chick?"
Saya folded her arms in indignation "I am not a chick, I am Sayoko Uzumaki." she huffed.
"U-u-uzuamki?"
"Well, I'll leave you two alone" Kakashi stood up and walked away. He looked over his shoulder at the end of the street at the two who were now sitting together in deep conversation. They were both wearing a smile as they looked into each other's azure eyes. Who wouldn't, if two siblings found each other for the first time in twelve years? They'd sort it out between themselves, better than anyone else could, Kakashi thought, as he walked away. Things would probably become a lot more interesting now.
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