RED
Chapter One; Education
Konoha's streets were littered with rain the day Haruno Sakura turned sixteen. The sun tried to make a few weak appearances but was blotted out by a herd of dark clouds hovering over the houses. Having hoped to have spent the day basking in the sun and letting the rays bounce off her pink locks, Sakura was instead faced by a wet-faced friend standing at the doorway of her house, large black umbrella in hand.
'A little rain never hurt anybody, did it now, Sakura?'
She scowled, pulling on a thick coat and a pair of waterproof boots.
'Since when does it rain in the summer?' she scowled as she shut the door behind her, instinctively hunching up under the blanket of the umbrella. The blond at her side laughed.
'Don't be in such a foul mood!' He gave her a scrutinising look, blue eyes crinkling up suspiciously. 'Are you grumpy because you're old now?'
She smacked him instantly, reflexively. The umbrella wobbled and thousands of precarious rain drops were shifted from their home, showering the pair in a mini-downpour.
'Naruto,' Sakura replied in an irritated tone, running her gloved hands through her now sopping hair, 'You're older than me by a year. Don't be an idiot.'
Her response, half-hearted and mocking, earned another chuckle from the umbrella-wielding Naruto. Up against the dark grey background of the world around them, Naruto's hair looked like the hidden sun, popping out now and then from beneath the cloud of the umbrella.
The two walked along the soaking streets of the Leaf Village, bundled together in their clumpy coats as rivulets of rainwater slopped over their boots. Their hair clashed tremendously. Their voices were almost oxymoronic – the quiet, gentle sweetness of a slowly maturing young woman against the brash, grating chuckle of a young man still clinging, somewhere in his heart, to his youth.
They did not decide where to walk. Their feet chose their path, sniffing a way out through the rivers of mildly acidic rain water washing over them. As they walked, and despite the dreary day, Sakura's mood lightened. Naruto's chatter was mindless and lacked any serious intelligibility but his humour and his charm were what she needed to wake herself up. Her Mother and Father were having a particularly hard year in terms of business – not that they'd done anything wrong, but custom had simply been a little slower than in the previous year and pockets had been pulled tighter to make sure the meals on the table did not shrink. This meant, unfortunately for Sakura, that they had only been able to afford one present for her sixteenth birthday.
She appreciated the book on medicine. She really did. However, she had also hoped for something a little more exciting or extravagant; her first lipstick, perhaps, or a new pair of boots that she could wear into Hatchlings the following Monday to steal the stares of her jealous fellow students.
Eager to move her mind away from the idea of Hatchlings at the weekend, Sakura turned her thoughts to the blond companion at her left. Naruto – without parents, with slim income, with few possessions – knew the best present he could give to her was a walk out in the streets, regardless of the rain. She was touched by his thoughtfulness. She imagined he was leading her to the small river that ran through Konoha – it was one of her favourite spots and even though she was hardly short of the sight of water at the moment, she would still always love to gaze into the shallow edges of the river and watch the clouds pass by, upside-down, above her. So easily could the world be turned upon its head! So frighteningly simple was it to uproot everything she knew, turf it out of normality, and then return it by simply looking up instead of down!
Naruto knew how she loved it; knew how it captured her imagination so vividly. The pair, friends since Naruto had smacked Sakura in the face with a football when she'd first moved into her Father's house on Tengoku Street (was it five… no… six years ago now?), had spent many an hour gazing into the wonky river world reflection of their own, and wondered. Those hours passed watching the ripples had nurtured their friendship and allowed a bond to blossom between them. Wrapped together tightly in a changing world around them, a world they did not quite understand, the two had come to rely on one another.
From the age of fourteen, Sakura had no longer attended mixed school, but was enrolled (as national requirement dictated) in Hatchlings, Konoha's state education system for young women. She was a bright young thing – she knew it, too – and felt wasted learning how to sew and cook and iron sheets to a crisp satisfaction whilst Naruto, simply because of his sex, attended Juveniles, the male equivalent, and learned politics, philosophy, and the art of war. How to protect a family. How to prep a rifle. He knew of her frustration; he could see it in the occasional clenched fist as they walked along, and so on most week nights Naruto dedicated his evenings, where he could, to teaching her everything he learned in the dull grey classroom of the day. Sat back to back on the banks of Konoha River, Naruto would impart, parrot fashion, what he had picked up, and Sakura would take in, soaking the words in hungrily, probing with her mind, and ignoring the mindless chores she had perfected during the day.
Often, she wondered whether she and Naruto should swap lives. Just for the day, of course. She could prove herself worthy of the Juvenile institution, revelling in the modern politics and laws and regulations that Naruto so despised, thriving on the smooth click of the trigger as she handled the weapons with ease. Of course, the threat of war was slowly looming larger – Naruto had explained Konoha's imminent desire for more space for Leaves to her many times in the ageing sunlight of the river bank – but Sakura could handle that. She could handle heading out to fight for her country; stretching her legs and proving herself in the name of righteousness for the citizens of the Leaf Village.
And Naruto, in the meantime… Sakura knew he had always yearned for the quiet life. His chatter was youthful, energetic – but his soul ached for peace. Simplicity. Sometimes, Sakura wondered if Naruto was actually a hybrid – two people squashed into one blond haired, blue eyed body. Naruto Number One was loud, and brash, and jumped in and thrashed. Naruto Number Two was the quiet, gentle motivation for the other – Naruto Number Two was the lover of peace.
So it wouldn't really hurt, decided Sakura as they reached the muddy river bank, if she and Naruto swapped places for the day. She could handle the world, she was sure. And Naruto would have a fine time learning the best way to cook potatoes.
'Sakura.'
She blinked; the world had been lost to her for a moment. Catching herself, she glanced up at Naruto and noticed that one of his shoulders was getting very wet by poking out from the shadow of the umbrella.
'Your shoulder is soaked, Naruto.'
'Do you want to learn about the New Red Laws?'
That really caught her attention. Naruto could easily bait her sharp, keen mind with promises of politics. She gazed at him for a moment, scrutinising him.
'What's the cost?'
Her question earned her a bright, mischievous grin. 'One kiss.'
She scowled instantly. 'No deal.'
Somewhere deep inside, a voice muttered that she liked the attention, but Sakura's one pet hate about Naruto was that he fancied himself as having a chance with her. It didn't exactly come up often, but she sometimes found herself wondering whether he was nice to her because he was her friend, or nice to her because he wanted to up his chances. And occasionally, she found herself teasing him a little, offering him the bait of a kiss, never really considering the possibility of it. In a way, she thought, they were as bad as each other. But to offer her such meaty, tempting bait with the same old request as always was a little mean on Naruto's part.
He could see the reluctant anger in her eyes, so Naruto quickly changed his tact.
'All right, all right. No kiss. I want at least two cakes out of the next batch you bake in Hatchlings.'
Peace established in less than twenty words, Sakura held out her slender hand. 'Deal.'
The grass was too wet for them to sit on. The riverbank, decorated here and there with the occasional leafy tree, was sopping, and the host of water dancing through its middle chattered with the pelt of the rain. The pair took shelter under one particularly large oak, and, keeping the umbrella up, Naruto began to talk.
'I was explaining the problem of the Reds to you the other day, do you remember?'
Sakura nodded eagerly, almost physically feeling the connections wiring up and lighting inside her mind. 'Of course. How they betrayed Konoha after the First Great War, and how their population is growing, and how the Hokage thinks they may be planning to revolt and ruin the countr--'
'Do you know what makes a Red, Sakura?'
She paused at Naruto's question, answers tingling in her jaw but none of them seeming to make sense. 'What do you mean?'
'What makes them different to us Leaves?'
A drop of rain managed to find its way down her back, sliding down the pale skin of her spine as she found the answer. The one she'd known for years without really being sure where she'd learned it.
'Well, they're just not as good as us Leaves, are they? They're…inferior.'
Naruto offered her a nearly smile, and then looked out at the river. It seemed sad today. Sakura followed his gaze, and the bright green of her eyes seemed to dim against the grey pallor of the water.
'Do you remember those Blood Banks that the Third set up?'
He didn't look at her when he spoke, but Sakura knew he expected her to answer. 'Yes. They were for Reds to give blood, weren't they?'
'That's right,' Naruto answered, his safe, pale blue eyes gazing away. 'The science of it is that Leaves, like you and I, have blood type O, or A, or AB, or B. It's just the blood we're born with. Different people have different blood types – you and I may not have the same blood. It comes from your parents.'
He paused, checking she was still following – her eyes let him know she was taking everything in.
'Well, there is also Blood Group R, which gets its name from the high levels of protein lying on the surface of the red cells in the blood. Group R is quite rare. Anyone with R type blood is known as a "Red".'
She was still with him.
'I'm still not completely sure of the biology behind it all…' he chuckled a little, 'because Shikamaru and I were messing around in the lesson on Thursday, but, what I can gather is that Blood Group R has quite strong regenerative powers.'
Her imagination was sparked. 'Regenerative?'
'It heals well, and clots more consistently than other blood groups. It's also more compatible than all of the other blood groups – some of them you can't mix together because they'll reject each other. R is compatible with every other blood type and won't be rejected.'
'So,' Sakura continued, her mind ticking away, 'when the Fourth set up these Blood Banks, he was encouraging Reds to give blood as it could be used to help more people?'
Naruto nodded. A small wind picked up and brushed a shaft of rain into their eyes.
'However,' Naruto returned to the lesson, wiping the rainwater out of his eyes, 'I've heard that the Reds were quite uncooperative with the Blood Banks and often refused to attend, even when it was made a legal requirement last year. And for that, the Reds are being punished.'
'Punished?'
Another nod. 'The New Red Laws were passed last week by the Fourth Hokage. It's basically two new rules: the first is that Reds are forbidden to marry, or… uh… have relations with Leaf citizens. The second is that Reds are no longer classed as citizens of Konoha – they will simply be known as Nationals.'
'So the Reds lose their rights as citizens of Konoha?'
The two were silent for a moment. The world in which they had been placed was hard for them to understand. Sometimes, Sakura thought it seemed more like the upside down world that wobbled in the river. Ever since she could remember the Fourth had been tipping the Leaves off about the plans of the Reds – how they were going to take her Father's business from him, how they could destroy whole villages if left to breed and to prosper, how the Reds were poisonous. Reds were Reds. No matter how nice they were.
It wasn't really a question of believing it, for Sakura. Fact was fact, and the facts of this matter were that Sakura's Father was slowly earning less and less money, while posters told her that Reds were making more and more. And here was Naruto telling her of their special blood which they refused to share.
Selfish.
In a way, the New Red Laws made her glad. If Reds weren't prepared to help their nation, what rights did they have to be treated as equal citizens? The country was embroiled in hardship – it had been since the First Great War twelve years ago. A decade was not enough time for a country to repair itself. And to make matters worse, it was being eaten apart from the inside by the selfishness of a race that could help. How could the Fourth Hokage continue to increase the greatness of Konoha if he was plagued with a host of people who insisted upon hindering him?
Reds did not deserve rights.
'Have you ever met a Red, Sakura?'
She'd been dragged down into her thoughts again – it seemed to be happening more and more often, as she got older. Youth was being exchanged for intelligence and a mind that loved to examine itself. Blinking away her anger, Sakura processed Naruto's words.
'No,' she answered, her voice a little harder than she liked. 'And I don't want to.'
Naruto tore his gaze away from the depths of the river and looked at her. Studied her face. Read the propagandised fury in her eyes.
'Do you know,' he murmured, after a moment, 'that they say you can recognise a Red by his eyes? That they glow in the light of a torch? Like the eyes of a rat?'
He looked up, towards the grey sky and the wind that cried over them. 'I've never noticed it. I've never seen a physical difference. I wouldn't have even guessed…'
'You should carry a torch,' Sakura said stubbornly, not liking the near-disappointment hinted at in his words. Had she done something wrong? Had she missed a point?
'I don't think so,' he said. 'I don't see why I'd need to.'
Naruto was the upside down part of her world. He was the part that didn't fit, that didn't hate. The part that wobbled and shifted, and thought for itself more than anybody else she knew. Even more than her Father.
'I should get home,' she said quietly, not liking the feeling that she'd let him down. All she'd wanted to do was learn. Since when had the word 'Red' been able to spark such a response in her? 'It's getting late.'
'Alright.' Naruto smiled, but to Sakura, the smile didn't reach the corners of his eyes. Perhaps the rain had saddened him. He reminded her of the river.
'But I want to take you home a different way.'
He held her hand.
She knew it was serious when he held her hand.
Naruto led her home through streets he himself had declared as 'out of bounds' in the past. They seemed darker than Tengoku street (Sakura took great pleasure in explaining that the word Tengoku meant 'heaven' in the native tongue of Konoha. She liked to introduce herself as an angel) but that could have just been down to the rain and the clouds gathering overhead. Clutching Naruto's hand, dragged along through puddles and darkness, Sakura felt as far away from sixteen as she could be.
She felt like an infant having their eyes stretched open to the real world.
Where was her underwater, wrong-side-up world now? Where was the rippling place to hide now she was faced with boarded up shops and slurs marking the windows in cheap, greasy paint? Her hungry mind took it all in; the ruined houses dotted about along the bleak street, the personal and artistic touches such as an abandoned shoe that could never fit a child more than three years old, tossed aside on the pavement and sodden in the dirty rain.
Why had she never seen this?
Naruto seemed to lose his sense of urgency when he got her into the thick of it, when they were surrounded by crumbling boards and silence-infested spaces.
'Scarlet Row,' he said, catching his breath as they slowed to a walk. 'This place is known as Scarlet Row.'
Never had Tengoku seemed so far away. Never had she wanted more to close the blue door to her little house and shut out the weather.
'Dreary, isn't it?' Naruto's voice took on a callous tone. 'Needs a good lick of paint.'
Sakura couldn't help but note the irony in his statement as she stared at a boarded up window nearby with the words RED AND DEAD slashed into it like an angry scratch upon pale white skin.
'Do…' Her mouth was dry. 'Do people live here?'
'Most of them have been cleared out.' Why was his tone so factual? How could the ruin of this street not affect him? 'A few weeks ago, the Fang came and declared all Red business on this street to be illegal. Citizenship rights, and all that. Smashed the buildings up and chased the Reds out.'
'Where do they go?' She was appalled. Naruto shrugged.
'There are a few streets left safe for Reds. Every rat finds a hidey-hole, right?'
Sakura's heart pounded in her ears at his words. She knew the Reds were greedy and nasty and part of the 'problem' but the part of her that loved (her heart – one of the biggest in the world) could not fit the two scenes together. The Red – ratty, beady eyes, pockets full of wrongfully taken money – and this street, and the shoe, and the paint on the walls, and the empty, humiliated silence.
How did they fit?
'The Poisonous Mushroom.' His voice was almost drowned out by the rain, which seemed heavier in this street. 'That's what they're calling them. The Red Poisonous Mushrooms.'
He turned to her, looking so out of place with his Leaf eyes and his Leaf hair and his perfect genetics. Who was he to tread this ground?
'I want to go home,' whispered Sakura, tears stinging at the back of her eyes. She'd seen too much. 'What sort of a place is this to take me for my birthday?'
Naruto smiled at her. It was soft in the rain.
'You're an adult now.' His words pattered upon her like the falling sky around them. 'This is the world you're always so desperate for me to tell you about.'
A tear escaped, blown out by the wind.
'I don't want to know any more,' she said, the stubbornness returning to her voice weakly. 'I want to shut my eyes and never see this again. I never want to meet a Red in my life.'
Naruto's smile faded as he held her in the rain. It was almost as if he knew.
Of course, he does not know. How can he? His time is set; straight. He cannot weave in and out of it as we do. His path is direct and one way. No turning back. No stepping out of line. Of course he does not know.
But we know.
