Sakura woke slowly, climbing gradually through those stages of sleep where you can almost think, but not quite. Her thoughts were muddled and tangled, but she couldn't bring herself to sit up, throwing back her drowsy blanket and springing her thoughts back to pencil-tip clarity. Instead, she delved deeper into her mattress, wallowing in the warm trough made by hours of lying in the same place. After a moment, she did crack open one eye to see what had woken her.
The room was still lit in tones of grey, but they had softened a bit with the hint of light that had just begun to creep through the grimy glass of the window. From the amount of light, Sakura guessed it to be early morning, maybe four thirty or five. Liberty still slept soundly on her little trundle, her blankets tangled hopelessly around her small limbs and her dark hair in a disarrayed mess on her pillow, but someone else was in the room, trying to move around quietly. Lifting her head a few centimetres, Sakura could make out Naruto's form blundering around over by the wardrobe. It looked as if he had just gotten back, a fact that was further proved by the cold, flat blankets on the side of the bed opposite Sakura.
"Naruto," she hissed, and he turned around, one leg in his pyjama pants.
"Oh, Sak'ra, you're awake," he mumbled, slurring his words a bit.
"Did you just get back?" He bit his lip and nodded. "Have you been drinking?"
"Jus' a bit…" He shifted awkwardly. "One o' the others bought it, so I'm not wasting money."
"Whatever." Sakura flopped back down onto her pillow and pulled the blanket up to her nose. Her fingers brushed her face, and she felt wetness. In a flash, she remembered her dream, but just as quickly as it had come, it slipped away like sand between her fingers. Across the room, Naruto fumbled with the buttons of his pyjama shirt, finally giving up and coming to bed with the front undone.
"Sorry, Sakura," he muttered as he crawled in beside her, shivering at the touch of the cold sheets.
Sakura sighed. She wasn't angry, not really. She just hated it when Naruto was gone. She worried about him. So she wasn't really cross with him. But still…
"I'm not letting you sleep in late, you know," she said.
Naruto groaned. "C'mon, Sakura, that's just cruel."
She smiled brightly. "See you in the morning!"
Sensing danger, Naruto wisely closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep.
-
Despite her threats, Sakura did not wake Naruto when she slipped out of bed an hour later. She did wake Liberty, though, and quietly dressed her. She also hung up Naruto's shirt and trousers, which she had found on the floor of the wardrobe. Liberty respected Naruto and his hangover enough to remain quiet, so Sakura took advantage of the situation to brush the wild girl's long hair and pull it into a long, sleek plait down her back, something Liberty rarely allowed her to do. Sakura braided her own hair, too, and dressed in a simple brown housedress.
The two of them crept from the room to get breakfast, and found Sonja frying eggs at the stove. Sakura sliced some bread from the previous night's dinner, and they ate together at a corner of the big table. After they finished, Sakura set the girls to work washing the dishes, then went to get her and Liberty's coats from their room. She grabbed them from their hooks on the wall and turned to go back out, but hesitated at the door. After a moment's deliberation, she strode over to the bed and leaned over Naruto.
"Liberty and I are going out with Sonja to get our rations," she whispered. "We'll be back sometime this afternoon." She leaned in close and pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. "Sleep well."
A smile crept across Naruto's face as he slept.
-
Sakura felt vulnerable walking down the street, like an animal leaving its hole to search for food, never sure when a hawk would sweep down on it. She was the bottom of the food chain here, in this city. The prey. Even though she avoided politics, and had done her best to do nothing wrong in the past three years, even though she fostered no royalist or revolutionary angers, she couldn't help but feel that there was a dark shadow over her head. She never went out when she didn't have to.
All she wanted was to melt into the backdrop, to be so unremarkable as to fade from people's minds the moment they looked away. A camouflage of dullness sometimes serves better than any disguise. So a grey-brown scarf was tied over her bright hair, and she covered herself with a dreary wool coat and battered boots. Her pale skin was almost ashen, as unnoticeable as her clothing, and even her bold green eyes seemed to conceal themselves naturally, her eyelids always partway lowered, hiding her fiery gaze beneath their modest cover. Sonja was much the same, with her dull brown hair and faded clothes, but Liberty… Liberty was a problem.
Despite Sakura's previous attempts to tame it, springs of dark hair had come loose from the girl's plait, and the ribbon was slipping lower, threatening to fall off, freeing her cloud of curly locks. Her bright eyes sparkled with mischievous glee as she pranced along, and the cold air made roses bloom on her cheeks and nose. She smiled liberally, showing her pearly teeth, and everything about her seemed to glow, even in the dim, dirty air of the city.
They reached the Rations Office, and queued along the sidewalk. The line stretched along only one block at this hour, but Sakura knew that soon it would grow much longer, so she hurried the girls to the end, glad that they had gotten here so early.
A group of working men lined up behind them, shattering the smothering silence with their raucous laughs and obscene jokes. Sakura shifted herself protectively between them and the two girls, her maternal instincts guiding her into a defensive position over them. She gnawed her lip nervously, wondering how long they would have to wait.
They stood there for a few hours more before Liberty whined that she had to pee. The men laughed loudly, and Sakura glared icy daggers over her shoulder at them, then turned to Sonja.
"There's a public washroom six blocks north of here. Could you please take Liberty for me? I've got to hold our place in line." Sonja nodded, and took Liberty's hand. "Thank you so much. I'll tell your mother what a great help you were to me."
A pang of anxiety hit Sakura as soon as the girls were out of her sight, but she was glad to have them away from the rowdy men queued behind them. Hiding her left wrist with her right arm, she checked her watch. Five minutes until the first truck of food was scheduled to arrive. Food couldn't be stored in the Rations Office overnight without an armed guard, so it was all kept at one of a few storage facilities, and was delivered daily in several shipments, so that there was never more than one truckload stored at the Office itself at once.
When Sonja and Liberty returned nearly twenty minutes later, the line stretched across several blocks, and the food still had not arrived. While this was not unusual, as any number of things could slow down a delivery, it caused restlessness in the crowd, and the men behind Sakura had begun to get sullen with the worry that they would be late for work. When the girls tried to get back in line with Sakura, one of the men stepped forward, swinging ham-sized fists.
"Hey," he said. "They have to get in the end of the line."
"They're with me, so—"
"No saving places allowed."
Sakura's patience was wearing thin. "These are my daughters, and they are not going to get rations on their own. Therefore, they will not slow down the line." Technically a lie, but sometimes the truth needed to be stretched a little.
Unfortunately, the man seemed to have about the intelligence of a trained ape. "You're not allowed to save places in the rations line. You looking for a fight?"
Sakura opened her mouth to answer, but was cut off as a government truck came chugging down the street, engulfing everyone on the sidewalks in a cloud of noxious exhaust. However, as the cloud lifted, a metaphorical dark cloud seemed to lift from the people's shoulders as well, and a bit of animosity slipped from the burly man threatening Sakura.
"Fine, I'll let you get away with it this time, bitch," he muttered. "But next time send them girls to the back of the line."
Sakura let out a deep breath, and nearly collapsed to the concrete with relief. She wouldn't have known what to do if the man had persisted—she supposed she would have had to comply with his order and move to the back, meaning that they most likely wouldn't get rations that day.
They waited while the truck was unloaded, the workers moving the food guarded by soldiers with machine guns. About forty-five minutes after the arrival of the truck, the doors of the building were opened with a clatter, and the first dozen or so people were admitted by more soldiers. Inside, government officials scrutinised their ration cards before carefully measuring food out into their grocery bags.
The line shifted forward excruciatingly slowly, and Liberty, though she was too proud to complain, was obviously tired. The little girl's head kept bobbing up and down as she tried to keep herself awake. Sighing wearily, Sakura took her into her arms and held her as they shuffled gradually forward.
Finally, they reached the front of the line, and the guard hurried them inside before closing the door behind them with an ominous rattle. They were ushered into a shorter queue, which moved quickly forward. Soon they were standing in front of an oily man with yellow teeth and dirty fingernails who took the ration cards from Sakura's hand and peered over them scrutinisingly.
"Haruno, Sakura." He glanced up at her. "That's you then, girl?" She nodded, hiding her indignation at being referred to so disrespectfully. "Haruno, Liberty. Fine. And… Uzumaki, Naruto."
"My fiancé."
"Oh, really, now." The man leered down at Liberty, and Sakura could see his thought process in assuming that she was an illegitimate child. But it was easier to let him think that then to attempt to explain a story that he would just consider a lie, anyway.
He paused for a moment, but, on realising that Sakura wasn't going to rise to the taunt of his implication, he sullenly counted out rations for two.
"Excuse me, sir, but we need one mo—"
"Tell your fiancé to come get his own, Miss Haruno," he sneered. "Next!"
Sonja crept forward timidly and handed the disgusting man her cards. "Three, please, sir."
The man glanced at the cards, and, seeing that all three bore the surname Sarutobi, nodded curtly and handed Sonja the food.
"Thank you, sir," she murmured, then hurried over to where Sakura was waiting by the exit door. They were ushered out by yet another soldier, and pushed their way through the crowd onto the open street.
It was nearly noon, and the sun had managed to break through the clouds and smog, letting a little weak light trickle down to earth, but not enough to warm the earth. Sakura shivered and pulled her coat tighter around her slender frame.
Ahead, she heard cries, but proceeded cautiously. As they neared the scene of the commotion, people ran past them in the direction of the sounds. Sakura walked faster, wondering what was drawing these people like flies to honey. She saw others like her, heading in the same direction out of curiousity.
Rounding a corner, she saw something that made the answer to her questions all too clear. A government food truck had tipped over in the middle of the street and the door had burst open. Men, women and children swarmed over it, dashing around like ants on a carcass, hording and fighting over packets of crackers and cans of condensed milk.
Taking one of the girls' hands in each of her own, Sakura turned and tried to flee the scene, but couldn't fight against the tide of the crowd. The three of them were drawn in to the centre of the chaos as to a vacuum. A plume of panic rose in Sakura's breast, but she contained it. Sonja and Liberty needed her. She couldn't panic. She needed to stay calm.
At the side of the road, there was a large bush that the crowd was skirting. Maybe if they reached that, they could get somewhere from there… Sakura put all her trust in this plan, because she needed to believe something, anything. It was the only way she could possibly get through this.
Keeping the girls close to her, Sakura worked her way sideways through the mob. They neared the bush and she stretched out her fingers, but someone slammed into her from the side and she was pushed backward. She felt herself being pulled back into the tumult, and the panic within her faded to despair. Yet she fought it back, and pushed on.
Then people began to shout intelligibly, and all confidence she had remain dissipated instantly. They were crying things that she had heard before.
"Death to Uchiha!"
"Power to the people!"
"Long live the revolution!"
'No!' she wanted to scream. 'Stop! You'll gain nothing with your foolish shouting. No one cares what you yell, or how much you riot. You'll pay the price for your fleeting elation with your blood. Just shut up and live! Let me live!' But even if she had a chance of being heard over the crowd, no one would listen to her.
"Long live the revolution!"
Everyone was screaming now, and running in all directions. Sakura managed to seize onto the bush, and pulled herself and the girls close to it, huddling there, trembling with fear. Men had climbed inside the back of the truck and were throwing any remaining food into the crowd. More people were pounding on the doors of the cab, trying to get to the government officials within. The glare on the bulletproof windows prevented Sakura from seeing the inside, but she suspected that the men within were radioing for support, and the thought sent chills of terror down her spine. She pulled Liberty to her chest and breathed in the scent of her hair, trying to calm herself.
More and more people poured into the streets, screaming and waving small black flags. Some had banners, now, too, and they draped them ironically over the government truck. They were painted in bold black letters with obscene slogans and puns, which the mob laughed at and began to chant. Someone dragged out an effigy of Itachi Uchiha and men urinated on it, then strung it up and set it on fire. Sakura wished that if she closed her eyes and pulled her knees close enough to herself, she could disappear. She didn't care where she went; she just wanted to be away from here.
Someone was shouting, then, trying to say something. No one heard him. No one noticed the rumbling of engines until a half-dozen military vehicles drove up and blocked off the street around them. Then they realised, and then they ran.
Sakura leapt to her feet as the tide of movement changed, pulling outwards. Holding a small hand in each of her own, she pushed into the crowd and fled with them. The cold wind whipped her face, and her coat flapped up around her knees, but she ran with all her might, dragging the girl behind her. She pulled them out to the trucks and was nearly past, out to freedom.
Then Liberty's hand slipped away.
Sakura spun around, and Sonja was dragged ahead, away from her, but she barely noticed. She was pushing backward, once more moving against the mob, trying to get back past the ring of vehicles to Liberty. But the tide was strong, and she felt herself being pushed backwards.
"No!" she cried, and pushed back with a surge of adrenaline. She moved forward again, parting the crowd around her, and for a moment she caught a glimpse of her niece, fallen to the ground, unable to rise for the pressing of the throng. Then a large man slammed into Sakura, pushing her back, and she lost all the ground she had gained and more. She tried again, but her legs gave out beneath her and she was swept away with the crowd.
She screamed, a primal cry of rage and fear and sorrow, wordless and piercing, but no one heard her. She fought, but no one noticed. She wept bitter tears as she was swept away, but there was nothing she could do.
Soldiers leapt out of the trucks, and hoisted guns to their shoulders. Sakura cried out again, and pushed forward, trying to somehow stop them, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of thousands of bullets being pumped into the crowd.
Liberty was gone.