A Shinobi First And Foremost
~or~
Call Me A Girl ONE MORE TIME…
…
…
==Five Months After The Kyuubi Attack==
"Hello Sakura, my sweet baby girl…" Mebuki Haruno crooned to her infant daughter. Sakura blinked with a look most unbecoming of a newborn infant, was quiet for a moment that if those watching didn't know better was her actively processing what Mebuki had just said…and then the infant girl proceeded to let loose a howl that shook the windows with its pure, undiluted and utterly unholy in its ferocity RAGE.
One poor shinobi down the hall was startled out of the coma he'd been in since the Kyuubi attack by the outraged roar. He sat up looking around in terror trying to figure out where the Kyuubi was.
Sakura didn't make another sound after that first horrible howl, but she did curl into Mebuki and stay remarkably still with eyes scrunched shut. If anyone had been listening, they would have heard the newborn thinking over and over again words drenched bloody red in rage, Someone's gonna pay for this…
==Five Years Later==
"Sakura Haruno?" Iruka called from his roll sheet.
"I go by Akaryu!" the pink haired boy with the mask in the back row called.
Iruka blinked, looked at the roll sheet, looked back at the…student… "It says Sakura on the roll sheet."
"Bring me the sheet," Akaryu growled with a shocking amount of venom for a five year old, "I'll fix that."
By the following afternoon, Iruka was sitting across from the very frazzled and upset but resigned looking forms of a weary Mebuki and Kizashi Haruno, and their extremely disgruntled and still very tied up but insistent that she was a boy, daughter. The kunoichi class teacher was a Hyuga, and she had made the mistake of trying to force, Akaryu because she REALLY hated being called Sakura, to go to Kunoichi class.
Akaryu had denied it, vehemently denied it, violently denied it, and gotten knocked out with Jyuuken for her efforts. Iruka wasn't quite sure what Akaryu had done when she woke up in kunoichi class, but she had been hauled back after several extremely loud commotions down the hall, very tied up and very battered looking but also rather triumphant despite the bruises forming on her forehead, the blood welling from her nose and leaking out the corner of her mouth. Now as he and Hikari Hyuga sat across from Mebuki and Kizashi Haruno, he had a feeling he was going to find out.
Akaryu had inch wormed back to her seat quite quickly after Hikari had put her down. She had also headbutted Shikamaru Nara quite fiercely when he stared and declared her a girl after she asked him to help open her book since she was tied up. Iruka couldn't blame the poor boy, she was a definitely very pretty little girl behind her mask. However, that was something she was apparently hellbent to cover up, because even now she was still trying to pull her mask up over her face with nothing but her teeth.
Then Mebuki reached over, firmly yanked it back down and nearly got her fingers bitten off for it. Iruka felt a bead of sweat form and run down his temple at the vicious look in the little girl's eyes. It was like a starving dog with a scrap of meat.
"Oh good," Hikari mused, "She's not just that violent to me."
"No," Mebuki frowned, "She's like this to anyone who brings up the fact that she's a girl or mentions her real name. Isn't that right Sakura?" Kizashi just slumped in his seat, already knowing what was coming and dreading it.
"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME THAT?!" Sakura? No, Iruka decided, definitelyAkaryu, shouted as she struggled violently against the cords holding her, "MY! NAME! IS! AKARYU! I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU THAT SINCE I LEARNED HOW TO TALK! HOW LONG UNTIL YOU GET IT THROUGH YOUR SKULL?!"
"NEVER!" Mebuki screamed back, just as red in the face as Akaryu, "I GAVE BIRTH TO A BEAUTIFUL SWEET BUBBLY BABY GIRL AND NAMED HER SAKURA! I DON'T KNOW WHERE THIS AKARYU BUSINESS CAME FROM BUT I WILL NOT HAVE IT!"
"FUNNY!" Akaryu barked back, now somehow standing on her chair despite still being very tied up, "BECAUSE I DISTINCTLY REMEMBER HOWLING IN ABSOLUTE RAGE, SULLING UP AND SULKING AS I PLANNED MY REVENGE ON WHATEVER RANDOM OMNIPOTENT BASTARD DID THIS TO M-!" SLAP!
"WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT SWEARING?!" Mebuki shouted, now on her feet in a towering rage as Akaryu tumbled to the floor.
"BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS!" Akaryu shouted back from the floor, "I AIN'T A GIRL AND YOU AIN'T MAKIN' ME INTO ONE! SO QUIT! TRYING!"
Iruka chose this moment to intervene, leaping from his seat to get between the irate mother and his recalcitrant student, "Mrs. Haruno!" at the same time Kizashi leapt up an instant too late to catch his daughter, "Mebuki! Akaryu-kun! Calm down!"
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!" Mebuki raged, "I'M BEATING THIS LESSON INTO HER HEAD ONCE AND FOR ALL!"
Then a monstrous killing intent filled the room and a calm firm voice spoke with enough authority to make an entire battlefield clam up, "No, I don't believe you will."
"LORD THIRD!" Akaryu exclaimed delightedly before inch-inch-inch-ing across the floor very quickly to slink behind the Hokage's robes and shoot a baleful glare at the irate woman being held back by the force of Lord Third's intent.
The aging Hokage turned and scooped up Akaryu, holding her at eye level, "It's been quite some time hasn't it Akaryu-kun? Why did you beat yourself so bloody?"
"Don't wanna go to kunoichi classes," Akaryu pouted, "Those are for girls. I'm a shinobi. Not a girl. Can't do anything about my body yet, but I'm not a girl."
Hiruzen frowned thoughtfully for a moment, "Oh? Is there something wrong with being a girl?"
Akaryu was still for a moment in surprised shock and then took a second to think about it before shaking her head and calmly replying, "No not at all. I am simply not a girl. It's not that I don't like girls, I like girls very much! I'm just not a girl myself you see? I hear girls talk to each other and it's just eeeooo…" she shuddered like a spider made of ice had just crawled down her spine, "and I hear guys talk to each other and it makes sense. Girls are all about feelings and girly stuff, I don't want to be about feelings and girly stuff! I care about being a shinobi! Sneaking and fighting and tactics and good stuff like that!"
"Kunoichi are shinobi too!" Hikari protested, "We do all those things!"
Akaryu shot a venomous glare over her shoulder, "The kunoichi class textbook has an entire. CHAPTER. Devoted to flirting. FLIRTING Hikari-sensei. I have no interest in boys and I never ever will!" Then she turned back to Hiruzen, "On a related note, Lord Hokage? Could you pretty please pull my mask back up? I don't like my face and I really don't like other people seeing it."
Hiruzen raised an eyebrow, "Don't like your face?"
"YOU HAVE A PERFECTLY PRETTY FACE!" Mebuki shouted.
"I know…" Akaryu declared with a long-suffering groan, "that's WHY I hate it. Pleeease Lord Hokage? I don't want people thinking I'm pretty! I almost had it back up and then Mebuki-san yanked it back down!"
Hiruzen frowned, "Mebuki-san?"
A harsh light lit Akaryu's eyes, "I refuse to call her any variation of mother until she acknowledges my choice of identity. Dad's already acknowledged me, I don't think it's too much to ask! I tried playing nice for the entire first year after I learned to talk, she wouldn't play nice. So now we're playing the stubborn game, and I will win."
For a moment, silence reigned. Then the shouting started.
After the ensuing screaming match, Akaryu wasn't called or even listed with the surname Haruno anymore, nobody ever mentioned the name Sakura again, and the event was mostly forgotten as the Haruno's moved away, leaving an empty house inhabited by one pink haired little girl who insisted she was a boy until everyone began to believe it.
