leaf


We leave home by the third week of spring, when the rains have turned the roads wet and slippery with mud and the world blooms green as we pass by, endless fields of grassland swaying in the breeze. We take only our tattered knapsacks with us.

Mother chatters as we walk along, pointing out the plants and their various uses to me. She wants me to know what I can eat. She always wants me to know where the nearest water source is. She always tells me what villages we passed, in what direction, and how far away they are.

She wants me to know, if anything should happen to her...

(I understand now that the reason she agreed to this journey is because she knows I am not a child. Oh, she loves me like her child, but she knows I understand the risks).

She hates to be travelling alone, the two of us. She tried, unsuccessfully, to barter a ride for us with a caravan of merchants headed for Fire Country, but they'd looked at us like we were filthy rats, and sneaking along would have been met with great prejudice, so we thought better of it.

"We're stealthier this way," I say, optimistically, as we skirt along the edges of the main road. Mother sends me a smile for my effort.

The caravan at least had guards. Alone, a woman and a child, trekking across a war-torn country, we are easy prey. Our survival hinges entirely on stealth. I feel a sinking sense of guilt, as I know she would be faster and significantly safer without me. My small body tires too easily, and though she carries me without complaint, I feel increasingly sorry for the burden.


Our second day on the road, there is a faint whistling in my ears. I tell her so. Her face darkens as she pulls me to the ground.

"Are you dizzy?"

I shake my head. The whistling rings louder, sibilant. It rises to a fever pitch, and I press my hands to my ears. It does nothing to muffle it. It's ringing inside out. "I... I think something is coming."

It approaches fast. I can make out three notes, in a sharp crescendo, so loud they drown out the howl of the wind over the grass plains. His footfalls are completely silent as he soars through the air in leaps and bounds.

Mother presses a finger to my lips. We huddle together under the tall grass with bated breath. I close my eyes, my head pounding in a haze, and her thumb draws soothing circles into my palm. When his screeching echoes fade in my ears, I open my mouth, and click it shut.

She tilts her head at me like a curious bird.

I raise my shoulders in a shrug. "I heard something."

She sighs, but pats my head warmly all the same. Her face is bloodless pale under her smile. "Good of you to keep an ear out, Karin-chan."

I pause. That man - he was so much louder than anyone else. Anyone else I've ever met. His song consumed the world. "Mommy, what... what was he?"

"Shinobi," she says, like it's a whole other species. Something different from us, humans. Maybe it is.


Our third day on the road, we come across a dying man. I have fallen asleep, curled up in my mother's arms. I wake to her setting me on the ground, hovering over me in a crouch, her eyes lost in the distance.

"Momma...?" I stare up at her questioningly. She breathes out slowly, bitterness and pity warring across her weary face.

Then I hear it. A ragged staccato beat at the edges of my consciousness, bleeding out into empty pauses between each mournful note. I turn my head to look. The stranger is propped up against a tree, staring. His body shudders with every breath, pitiful gurgles ripped out of his lungs.

She collects her knife quietly. "Poison," she says quickly, though I did not ask, and slashes his throat twice to put him out of his misery. The first time, shakily. The second time, she's sure.

She killed him just so he wouldn't haunt us. We never stopped to ask if he could be saved. We never let ourselves wonder if we could get him to help if we hurried, if we turned back to the village we just passed, if maybe there was a healer and we begged and we tried.

But we did not try. We thought: we must go on our way. We are too vulnerable already. We cannot shoulder the additional weight of him.

"The weak can't often afford to be merciful," she mutters, mouth twisted sourly.

Her words crawl down my spine, sinking like a rock in the pit of my stomach. I retch slightly, staring at the corpse, wide-eyed and silent. I struggle to reconcile the blood on her hands with the woman who sings me to sleep, who carries me so gently when I am tired.

My mother is not a proper kunoichi, she says, her voice wistful. She never had training beyond the very basics of how to throw a weapon. She can't mold chakra in any useful way at all. All she retained: the willingness to kill and the resilience to survive.

(I realize now, when she was telling me about the plants, she didn't point out all the poisonous ones just so I wouldn't eat them).

I sigh. She shakes her head at me, eyes dark through half-lidded lashes, and rests her hands on my shoulders, squeezing. "Better him than us."

The thought cuts across my nausea with a bonechilling clarity. Better him than us, I think, swallowing. I look up to the mottled grey sky, rainclouds drifting by. Slowly, I nod.

"War makes ghosts of us all," she whispers into my hair. "When we cross the border to Fire tomorrow, things will be better. They're at peace."

Something about the way she says peace sounds like a promise.

But... something about the way she says it rings hollow. Like a promise you can't keep.


When the grassland gives way to forests of ancient trees, our path comes to an uncertain halt. Mother, for all her hopeful courage, has never been to Konoha and only knows its general location. She had hoped to ask for more precise directions along the way. I have only ever seen the village in memories from another life. I can only remember the mountain and -

"I hear it," I say, blinking, with a sudden certainty.

She raises her eyebrows at me, looking around. "I don't hear a thing, Karin-chan."

Konoha is not to be found on any maps. They are not called Hidden Villages for nothing. Attempting to ask for directions only got us shunned or worse, outsiders as we visibly are. Routes to Konoha are the knowledge of plenty of merchants and clients of the village, but they are not given for free to destitute strangers who show up out of nowhere, with nothing to trade in turn.

We were met with suspicious eyes and closed mouths, everywhere we turned.

I shrug. I feel a confidence rising within me. "Every time we passed by a shinobi, I could hear them from a mile away. Their chakra is - it is - " Terrifying. Overwhelming. Alive. Absurd. Mesmerizing. "And Konoha has thousands of them. All in one place. It is... very distant... and vague... like I'm listening through a wall and it's a thousand different broken notes at once all tumbling over each other and it's just one big ball of noise... but I can hear it."

Mother nods, a faint frown creasing her forehead. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

She falters, eyes turned downwards, mouthing soundlessly as if she is arguing with herself. I can tell she thinks herself mad, turning east because a four-year-old thinks she heard something in the forest. I curl my hand around hers and shoot her a beaming smile. She squares her shoulders and I can see the leap of faith in her eyes, a sudden boundless glint.

We lean against each other, muttering about our plans and dreams. They consist mainly of all the food we wish we can eat, once we finally reach Konoha. It makes us hungrier than ever, but smiles crack across our faces, and we keep walking on tired feet.

This time, I am the one tugging her along, my hopes singing louder with every step.


My first impression of Konohagakure is that it gives me a headache.

The village is the most awful cacophony I've ever heard in my life, home to thousands of souls screaming over one another, a mismatched orchestra where each musician plays a different tune. Up here, within sight of its walls, the sheer racket is deafening and makes my head pound, but it does nothing to dim my enthusiasm.

Embarrassingly, we arrived from the wrong direction. Mother laughs and says she's glad we arrived at all. We are circling around in search of the main gate when the guards accost us.

A pair of them leap in front of us in a swirl of spiraling leaves, landing smoothly on their feet, forehead protectors glinting sharply. Their chakra crackles in the air like thunder, an electric rush tingling my ears. Young men, dressed in flak jackets, with dark eyes and hair, their faces studiously unreadable. One a short fellow with a strip of bandage running across the bridge of his nose and the other, slightly taller, with a mousy face and a single eye peeking warily through a curtain of hair.

The guard with the bandaged nose speaks up first. His chakra is like the beat of a drum, steady but quickening. It sounds agitated, surprised perhaps, with an off-beat of curiosity creeping through. There is a smile in his voice, but a cold, polite one. "Welcome to Konoha. How may we help you?"

Mother clears her throat. "Ah, yes, shinobi-san... we are... we come from Grass. We hope to find refuge in your village." She bows her head politely.

"From Grass, huh?" He casts us a long, considering glance. "Your documents?"

"W-we are refugees... we don't really..."

I squeeze my mother's hand, swallowing. Have we come this far to be turned away?

But the guard only nods, as if he were expecting that. His partner speaks up suddenly, sounding ticked off. His chakra is the suspicious hiss of a flute. "Why didn't you come up through the main road?"

"We didn't follow the main road."

A frown. "Then how did you find us?"

"My daughter, shinobi-san. She's able to sense chakra."

His eyebrows jump slightly at that. Good, I think, please let us in. He scratches his chin thoughtfully. "Names, ages and skills?"

"I am Uzumaki Mayumi, I am thirty. I have been a seamstress since my youth. This is -"

"Uzumaki Karin, shinobi-san. I am five. I can sew, read and sense chakra." I punctuate my introduction with a small neat bow, because I am trying my very best.

"Uzumaki...?" There is a faint glimmer of recognition in his eye.

"My family fled from the fall of Uzushio when I was very young," my mother explains, sounding pained. "Our branch has a small bloodline limit with - with healing properties."

The guard's eyebrows hitch up higher, skirting dangerously close to his hairline. His partner, the bandaged one, taps him on the shoulder. A look passes between them, carrying a whole conversation. In a second, their chakra fluctuates: I can hear the drum pick up.

"Come along," he gestures. "I am Hagane Kotetsu and this is my partner Kamizuki Izumo. Welcome to Konoha, Uzumaki-san, and you too," he grins down at me, "Uzumaki-chan. I'll escort you both to the immigration sector shortly."

Dazed, we can only nod as we are led through colorful streets lined with vendors and stores of all kinds. The village is bustling and full of life, the sun shining brightly over the mountaintop. Mother and I exchange hopeful smiles. I can feel my eyes getting dangerously misty.

Ten minutes later, we are seated stiffly in cold metal chairs in a sterile white room. A bored desk chunin scrawls away busily as we are interrogated, quite extensively, on every single possible detail of our backgrounds. There are no threats, and everything is done quite civilly, but no precautions are spared. I am asked everything from the name of the village where I came from, what is the climate like in Grass country, what do I like best about Konoha, what is my favorite game to play, what do I want to be when I grow up, to several questions about my ability to read, add and subtract, and my mother is asked ten times more questions than I am, chiefly about what we plan to do once we settle here.

At some point, a different interviewer comes in, a sharply dressed woman with glasses, and she has us demonstrate our bloodline limit - which is done, thankfully, with very small, humane bites - before drilling me extensively on my sensing abilities. She has me count off the number of people in the building, and whether they're shinobi or civilian, then the number of people in the street - which I fail miserably at, because everything outside is a horrible jumbled mess of noise to me.

My heart hammers in my chest as she corrects all my loose estimations, but then she just smiles.

We are given a year's worth of probation and temporarily assigned to government housing in a public shelter, but we are allowed to stay, on the condition that my mother finds gainful employment and that I be required to enroll into the ninja academy once I turn six, the mandatory age.

I am not quite sure how to feel about that. Life as a ninja seems stressful and harzardous. I would be content to settle into a quiet existence with my mother, after our long tiring journey. But having been tested on my sensory skills, there is little choice. The village requires that I reward it with my service.

Part of me wonders if perhaps I should have withheld the existence of my skill, but I couldn't afford to, as we had to explain how we found the village. Besides, it was in our best interest to impress them in any way possible, lest we get turned away. I doubt that Konoha, despite their reputation as the most humane ninja village, takes refugees from all corners merely out of the kindness of their good hearts. Those who are granted asylum are those who prove their usefulness to the village.

"So Karin-chan," my mother leans down, with a cheerful grin, "You are going to be my little kunoichi, huh?"

"Well," I say uncertainly, and promptly fall over as she tickles my ribs mercilessly. She picks me up, kissing me on the forehead, humming a cheerful tune against my skin. Overhead, the Hokage mountain looms fierce and imposing, faces carved starkly into the stone and... is that a smudge of orange paint on the Fourth's nose?

I stare at it, thinking of the story I watched unfold, so long ago. I, too, might become a ninja.


For a while, we are blissfully, peacefully happy.

My mother finds work as a seamstress. I spend my days at her side, sewing or reading quietly. After three months, we start to rent a small apartment in a humble neighborhood. There is warm food on our table every day. She buys me a brand new pair of glasses for my sixth birthday.

I face my impending academy enrollment with growing trepidation but a healthy dose of optimism. There is no specification made that I must fulfill a career as an active shinobi. I am required to attend the academy, but there is no demand that I succeed. I can easily fail my jounin teacher's test and settle into the Genin Corps for a life of menial D ranks with very little danger involved, or perhaps wash out with low grades and pursue civilian work.

All in all, I think to myself, attending some classes for a few years is a very small price to pay for the contented smile on my mother's face in the mornings. I'd pay it a thousand times.


My first day begins rather smoothly. The academy is packed full of starry-eyed students and proud parents as the Hokage delivers his solemn but sincerely heartwarming speech.

Afterwards, us children watch a brief opening lecture delivered by the head teacher about the greatness of shinobi life and the wonderful opportunity we are being afforded in attending the ninja academy. We are told to work hard, apply ourselves and keep the will of fire close to our hearts.

Then we are shuffled into our classrooms, quickly but very efficiently. To my dismay, as I beeline to the back of the room and help myself to a secluded seat, I recognize several faces around me.

I notice Kiba first, all teeth and noise, laughing uproariously, a tiny Akamaru curled up on his desk on the front row. Beside him, a very pretty blonde girl with sky blue eyes. Poised and attentive to the teacher's every movement, but looking rather nervously at her peers, a small girl with a mop of bright pink hair and green eyes full of wonder. By the wall, a boy in sharp glinting shades and a trenchcoat. Just behind him, a small girl with pearly white eyes glued to her desk. A pale dark haired boy staring out the window, a red and white fan proudly emblazoned on the back of his shirt. A boy munching noisily on a bag of chips and a prone figure taking a nap right beside him.

And, arriving late, breathlessly, slamming the door open for dramatic effect, Uzumaki Naruto, who greets the class with a smile like the sun and a very earnest declaration about how he will become Hokage one day, believe it.

Laughter breaks out.

I can barely hear it over the sound of his chakra, the sheer loudness of him. Naruto is a trumpet, blaring out at full volume, rising and rising with an intensity like he knows his will be a song for the ages. And somewhere underneath it, a bamboo flute whistling out a soft tune of hope.


Author's Note: Woo. So, Konoha is here. Or rather, Karin is there. Next chapter things will actually go down, I promise. Thanks to everyone who followed, favorited and reviewed, you guys are the bestest!