May 12, 1999
7 years, 6 months, 11 days prior to Incident
Sakura picked at the flaking blood on her clothes - her earlier victim had been of the messy screaming variety - and pondered the scene below her.
"You stupid brat!"
Smack.
A whimper filled the small alleyway.
"Thought you could steal from us?" Kick. "Huh?!"
"I'm s-s-so-sor-ry…"
Crash.
"You think saying sorry will be good enough?"
"Hey, why don't we make him vomit it back out?"
"HA! I bet he won't forget that anytime soon!"
Sakura twitched and jumped off of her perch. Stupid bleeding heart!
As one of the three men drew a leg back and aimed it at the small child huddled on the ground, a flash of black cut across the scene. An indistinct figure, clothed head to toe in black and ambiguous in every discernable way, landed in front of the lump and picked it up easily. The figure turned to them.
"What do you think you're doing?" it asked in a chillingly cold voice.
Try as he might, Kaneboshi Ginzo couldn't place if the voice was high pitched or low pitched. No matter how much he squinted, he couldn't tell whether the stranger was skinny or bulky or short or tall.
"Teaching this little snot a lesson he won't forget," one of his drunker business associates proclaimed. He laughed obnoxiously.
The black figure disappeared with its new bundle and then was back before Kaneboshi could blink.
"What are you - ?"
A foot flew towards his face. It impacted heavily and left a broken nose and several loosened teeth in its wake.
"ARHG! HOW DARE YOU, YOU FUC - "
A fist knocked all of the breath out of his body.
If an outsider had been looking in on this scene, they would have said that the shadows seemed to be moving on their own, the blackness of night itself reaching out to levy judgment on these men.
Finished with her self-appointed task, Sakura dispelled her genjutsu and crouched down in front of the cowering young boy. "Hey, what's your name?"
"K-Kaito," he told her. He coughed, and specks of blood decorated the cement rooftoop.
"Alright Kaito-kun, I need you to just close your eyes for a minute."
Kaito shut his eyes, but only just enough to give the illusion of being fully closed. He had long since learned that trusting random strangers was not conductive to survival, no matter how nice they seemed.
To his amazement, a green glow suddenly enveloped the stranger's hand. Kaito was torn - he wanted to see what it did, but what if it hurt him? In the brief moment before those hands contacted his skin, he contemplated running away, but decided his legs were in too much pain. He steeled himself for the worst as the hands lightly brushed him -
A gentle warmth unfurled from the point of contact, soothing his aches, dissolving his bruises, painlessly reconnecting torn skin. Kaito forgot he was supposed to keep his eyes shut, and awestruck blue met focused green.
Sakura sighed. "I told you to close your eyes."
Before she could extract an oath of silence from the kid, Kaito's state of relaxation allowed years worth of exhaustion to visibly overwhelm his young body.
He passed out.
Sakura hovered over the boy and wondered what to do.
On the one hand, it would be a blatant act of cruelty to leave Kaito here, defenseless as he was. It was obvious that he was an abandoned street urchin, just as she used to be. Plus, he might tell someone about her.
On the other hand, if she brought him to her apartment, she would have to keep him, both to make sure he didn't go around telling people about her and because she wouldn't have the heart to kick him out.
And on top of that, the kid had tuberculosis. She could cure it, though it would take a while, but...
But...
Sakura sighed again and made her decision.
Fuyuno Sakura - age 9, 5th year elementary
Fuyuno Kaito - age 6, no formal education
