She is six and too little to go to school (and of course she means civilian school because she'd never make it as a ninja - right?). The kids she plays with at the park aren't mean per se, they're not actively causing her pain like she'd seen some older kids do (a treatment she'd eventually get), but they don't realise that even the most casual statement can cause harm (or that's how her mother explains it anyway and Sakura holds on tight to that idea because she doesn't want people to not like her - she'd seen a blond boy around the village who'd seemed so lonely and Sakura didn't want that).

So sometimes (don't tell her mother!) she walks across the street from the park towards the library while her mother chats with her friends (the civilian library, of course, there is a shinobi library deeper into the village, closer to ANBU headquarters - she'd heard the blond boy yell about it once a few months ago and remembers it because, well, it is cool knowledge and that is the best knowledge).

The librarian smiles at her - always kind, always fair (Sakura had never seen her be rude to the blond boy - despite his quite annoying attitude, honestly, Sakura was starting to get why so many people didn't like him) - and Sakura makes herself at home, knowing that her mother is quite absent-minded (but she loves her family fiercely, Sakura's father always told her as they watched her mother get into another argument with their neighbor, who apparently took offence to the pink hair Sakura and her father shared). She has an hour to read and then sneak away quietly, before her mother notices her being gone (and then admit to sneaking away anyway, because she is that type of liar, the one who can't stand the guilt).

There is a book on the table, left unfinished, and Sakura huffs, already resenting the person for not putting the book back in it's correct place - don't they know it made librarians' lives harder? So she takes the book, planning returning it to the front desk, when a name catches her eye. Tobirama. The name of the Nidaime Hokage is in the book.

Sakura has always had one weakness: knowledge. Despite the book having no pictures and being hard to hold, being that heavy to her tiny frame, Sakura can't resist the call of knowledge.

She doesn't know much of the Hokage - past and present - not really. She is too young for school and only knows their names because everyone knows their names. She knows some things about the Shodaime (he started the village! Sakura can't imagine a time before Konoha), a bit more about the Sandaime (he is the current Hokage) and little about the Yondaime (other than the fact that he sacrificed himself for the village, an act that her parents always thank him for every year on the day of the Kyuubi attack), but she knows nothing about the Nidaime. She can't wait to go to school and baffle everyone with how much she knows about him!

[An hour later, Sakura is biting back tears and has no plans whatsoever of leaving the library, because the book is not from Tobirama's point of view - it switches between Madara Uchiha and the Shodaime Hokage - but Sakura doesn't care, because she's never felt so connected to someone in her life.

The book calls Tobirama, "logical to the point of it being a weakness" (that'd been Madara, the Shodaime's - who was such a silly man! - views of Tobirama were always positive and fond), always saying he's too smart for his own good, how he values being logical over emotions and Sakura understands.

Or at least she thinks she does.]

She's six, in love with the book and she demands her parents to be a shinobi. She wants to be like the Nidaime. If he could be odd-looking for his clan (sorry, Nidaime, she knows how much those comments hurt) and be too smart for his own good and still be powerful enough to be Hokage, she can be a great kunoichi!

(They tell her she has better chakra control than all of her peers and she thinks of Nidaime, who was one the best sensors ever known to man - an act that needs perfect chakra control as well as inborn skill - and puffs up in pride.)

She's seven and they learn about the all of the Hokage in the Academy. They learn that the Shodaime had mokuton, which made him both well-known and feared, they learn that the Nidaime was most known for all the things he'd created (they don't mention what he created, but Sakura still thinks of Hiraishin and Kage Bunshin), they say that the Sandaime is known as the God of Shinobi (wasn't that Hashirama? she can't help but wonder, but lets the issue drop), they say that the Yondaime was known as Konoha's Yellow Flash, who'd died killing the Kyuubi.

They don't mention that Hashirama loved Madara in the end, despite all of the things he'd endured from the man, they don't talk about Madara much at all, don't talk about how he'd been such an expressive child, always reaching for peace, they don't mention Tobirama and how he'd worked tirelessly on making the Academy work, how Hashirama had to drag him to bed and sometimes he still slipped back to working (the only thing that Tobirama comes even close to loving as much as he does his brother is Konoha, Madara had said and despite his best efforts, he sounded respectful), they don't mention little Saru, who'd looked at Tobirama with wide, awed eyes.

Sakura begins doubting her much-loved book.

She's twelve and she's asked what's her dream. She hasn't forgotten the want to be Tobirama's equal, but Sakura is a realist, a thing she prides herself in being. (Tobirama is, despite his best efforts, a pessimist, Madara had said once, making Hashimara look at him sternly - the two always went out of their way to fight and Hashirama was truly dreading the day it would come to fists - but agreed.) Tobirama grew up in a time of constant war, he had to things she didn't approve of to survive and, honestly, she'd learnt over the years that he was kind of an asshole.

Rereading the book (unlikely to be true, but it was the best and only source of knowledge she had on the subject) as teenager really made her look at him in a different light. Sure, she related to him but- she'd realised how awful killing was, as she'd grown. And he'd never hesitated, not as long as Hashirama could remember, he'd always been cruel and he'd always been merciless and Hashirama had never liked that about him. He'd accepted it, as Hashirama did everything about his brother, but he'd never approved.

But- it doesn't matter. Even if she wanted to admit to her childish dream (to be as great as the Nidaime? a civilian with little-to-no chakra reserves? don't kid yourself, Sakura.), she'd feel like she was copying Naruto. And that kid does not need more encouragement in his silly crush.

Kakashi-sensei looks disappointed, though she can't exactly pinpoint how she knows, at the answer she gives. She doesn't regret giving it.

(Sakura has always liked being blunt. Tobirama had been, despite it making him rude, Sasuke was, it made him even cooler, saying - well, maybe not outright - she has a crush on Sasuke is better than saying she admires a dead guy, wasn't it? It makes her seem more in the present and not dreaming about the past.)

She's twelve and sees the first kill of her life, watches Haku and Zabuza die in front of her, and wonders how he'd lived with it, knowing that he killed so many people. Remembers Hashirama and how Tobirama loved him more than anything and guesses it's the same reason why Hashirama killed. To protect.

(She still doesn't like it.)

She's twelve and the Chuunin Exams are a mess. She thinks about who she wants to be, who she had wanted to be, while the Oto shinobi holds her by her hair, and thinks of Tobirama, killing Izuna, killing all of Madara's sanity with one blow, thinks, not like that. She thinks, I'm going to be better, and cuts off her hair.

(Later, she thinks of Tobirama, staring at Konoha with fond eyes, making his elder brother smile and thinks, maybe a little bit.)

She's thirteen and Tsunade asks her why she became a shinobi. She doesn't hesitate because she can't afford to, she needs to become stronger, to catch up, she needs Tsunade.

She says, "Tobirama used to be my idol."

Tsunade nods, like she'd thought so, though Sakura knows no one did, "Used to be?"

Sakura pauses and corrects herself, "I don't want to be- like him. But he's- what I've strived for since I was little. It'd be wrong to change now."

Tsunade smiles.

(Tsunade, when drunk enough, always tells her stories of Tobirama, unprompted, and a part of Sakura lights up for the first time in years, the side that'd always wilted away when thinking about how merciless her idol was, the one that looked at the book and made Sakura's mouth twist downwards, because Tobirama was everything Sakura wasn't, yet the person that gave her a push in the right direction, the one person besides Sasuke that always made her feelings war against each other. Tobirama was cruel, except when he didn't have to be - he loves Konoha as his own child, Madara had said, meaning it as an insult, a reminder that Madara and Hashirama started the village, it was their dream - but he, despite his many duties, made certain that everything in the village was fine, memorised the oddest of numbers (how many kunai there were in all of Konoha? why would he even need that?) so he could recite them to Hashirama to get his brother so bored he'd rather do paperwork.

He was cold and he cared for little, but he was also everything Sakura strived for, powerful and loved and caring.)

She's seventeen and all of the past Hokage get resurrected. She can't exactly talk to them, as they are right in the middle of a battle, but she watches the Nidaime, watches the way he moves and feels like a little kid again, seeing the name Tobirama in a book left open in the library. He's as impressive as she'd always imagined.

He looks at her oddly for all of the staring, but Sakura doesn't hide away from it. He'd been who she'd strived for all of her life and she thinks she gets it:

She is better. She doesn't have to be Hokage, she doesn't have to be a great shinobi (though she is, she thinks proudly), she's better because she's what he'd strived for since Konoha was founded: a generation that was not born into war. A kid who got to stay a kid. She's a shinobi, but she wasn't born into a world that killed kids on as massive level as his.

She smiles at her idol and he looks at her curiously, but tips his head in recognition anyway.

(She thinks of that book, one that the library told her wasn't theirs, she could keep it, one she could never find a second copy for, the one that looked at the world through Uchiha Madara's eyes - both loving and hateful - and Hashirama's - who was a positive, but not a naive man - and she thinks of Tobirama, who she'd connected with instantly and wonders.

After the war, she goes home and isn't surprised to note the book is gone.)