The pinkish-haired girl shrank away when she saw the girls, cowering behind her mama who encouraged her to 'go play'.
She wanted nothing more than to wail that she didn't want to play with them. But mama wanted her to be a good little girl and play with other little girls. But she didn't want to. Sure they were nice enough when mamma was watching, but mamma and her friends weren't watching. And so they'd be mean and tease and bully her about her hair and sometimes even about her daddy and mommy. A-and she couldn't even hit them! Mommy said only 'violent, bad girls' hit people and didn't Sakura want to be a good girl and make mommy proud? But not just that but their games were so boring too!
So she usually played alone. She glanced back to her mommy who was giving her 'the look'. So she slowly, slowly let go and her mamma gave her a smile and she gave back a small one and momma petted her head and told her she was a good girl and not to get dirty. She nodded but both knew she'd manage to get dirty one way or the other.
Mommy was talking again. Sakura knew her way better now. She could play all by herself. Away from those girls but not too far away, so mommy wouldn't yell. She hated when mommy yelled or cried almost more than she hated those meanies. Almost. She loved mommy lots. But those meanies made her cry. Maybe if she was lucky they'd ignore her and she'd play happily in the dirt… Actually she was going to try that. And maybe if she looked like she was really, really having fun, they'd want to play with her…
And so she did. She was happy about it too. But then she heard noise. They were so loud! She frowned; mommy always said girls shouldn't be loud… She turned around only to see two boys. Playing. They looked like they were having tons of fun! Even more than her. It looked like they were playing ninja. She really, really wanted to play. Mommy didn't like ninjas but they were so cool! Mommy would understand. Sakura would be a good fighter. Boys didn't like playing with girls though.
Scrunching her nose she thought and then checked her pockets and found some candy wrappers, string, and, best of all, a few small pieces of candy! Maybe if she shared it the boys would play with her?
She walked over to the side of the play-yard, gave a bigbigbig smile, and handed each boy a piece of candy. They smiled back at her and she clapped and spun looking at them both. Maybe they could be friends. Not all boys could be icky.
They played with her, they never did that since she was just a girl but this time they did! And they dug holes and made traps because Dai's brother was going to be a soldier. Though Sakura wasn't so sure. Some guard he was. SHE could trick him, they agreed all of them could actually, even though he was eleven. But Dai had watched his brother set up traps and of course theirs were even better than his had ever been.
When her mama finally pulled her away it was with great difficulty. She didn't want to leave her new friends but she promised she'd bring more candy next time. Iku looked really happy about that, he'd eaten his candy right away after all.
...
A/N: yes i created some oc's. the story needed them she had to have played with other kids and as a civilian they were unlikely to be ninja.
as for the brother who wanted to fight well if civilian families were large enough it is likely they would send younger sons off to some low-ranking military post if they couldn't apprentice them, etc.
Also in the event any instructors from my school stumble upon this i posted these chapters *after* the assignment was due and made the assignment longer than need be. i don't just recycle works and these pieces are mine. i just already had an idea so i killed 2 birds one stone. oh i love writing courses.