Written in an hour or two while procrastinating and listening to too much Godsmack. I was reading a time-travel fic where they made Sakura's parents out as civilians, which I just don't think fits. I can't believe Kishi gave Shino a family and not Sakura, lead girl/love-interest. So anyways, here's my slightly angsty take on them, and why they are never seen out and about during shinobi battles.
Summary: Despite what people thought, Sakura's parents had been ninja. At least, until they got sent on a mislabeled mission and the 'accident' happened…
T h e A c c i d e n t
"Makino!"
The dust flew through the air thickly, filling his mouth with a gritty dirt and making him gasp painfully for breath. Chakra coursed underfoot, making the ground so soft the pink-haired boy could barely walk. He held out his hands to balance himself, his feet glowing blue with the chakra he was circulating viciously just to keep himself upright.
"Ukita!" He choked out, stumbling through the trees blindly. His mind could barely think, his sightless blue eyes still frozen on the image of their Kagae-sensei, face down among the rocks, the gaping hole in his chest spilling blood onto the ground and wetting their bare toes. "Ukita, where are you? Tozawa?"
"Makino, watch out!" The sound of his teammate's warning carried loudly to his ears but he couldn't move fast enough, and before he could even draw his sword from its sheath pain sliced open his legs from behind, silver metal slipping through the soft skin like butter.
With a terrible shriek the Haruno fell to the ground, gasping for breath as tears threatened to drip down his cheeks. He could feel the agonizing sting as his skin and muscles fell open to the gritty air, blood pooling sticky under his loose black pants.
"Makino, what happened!" Ukita's voice was closer now, fretful and high-pitched. "Makino, Makino tell me you're still there!"
"Don't come any closer!" Makino managed to gasp, trying to lift himself from the ground bit wincing as any movement made crippling pain shoot through his body. On his third attempt he felt a rough hand catch in his short hair, a cold blade pressing against his neck. Before he could react the sand began to clear, revealing Ukita's dirty, scraped up form, collapsing to the ground as the suddenly solid ground threw her off balance. Tozowa always had been their taijutsu expert-
"To- Tozowa!" Makino felt his blood run cold as the corpse of the small Inuzuka came into view, his bleeding body hunched over the form of the loyal wolf cub still grasped in his pale fingers. An amused snicker came from above him but he didn't dare look up, the thin kunai already drawing blood from the taught skin of his throat. "Ukita, get away now!"
"Too late little genin."
The tall man appeared suddenly behind Ukita, dragging her up by her long blonde hair and holding his long sword against her neck. "One of you moves so much as a finger and we'll kill you both."
Ukita's green eyes stared at Makino fearfully, her hands hanging at her sides limply, still bandaged from injuries less than a day old. Blood was soaking through the bandages, the hastily stitched gashes beginning to reopen. He was completely unnerved by the panic and devastation in the girl's eyes. She'd always been the loud one; the one to make up for Tozowa's lack of typical Inuzuka brashness. He'd never seen her look so scared, not even last night when they'd found their sensei's dead body just outside their camp.
"So," The tall, dark-skinned nin started with a sadistic grin, his sword still pressed painfully against Ukita's throat. Makino struggled against the numbing, burning sensation running up his legs, forcing his eyes to stay open. "Since I'm feeling nice today, I'll let you guys choose. Which one of you will die here, and which one of you will carry word of this back to Konoha?"
"Ukita, just go!" Makino shouted before he could think, before he could fully comprehend that he was sentencing himself to death. 'Don't think of yourself Makino, don't be the selfish scaredy-cat you always are-'
"I'm not leaving you here!" Ukita said, her voice quivering and almost on the verge of sobs. But he could see it, in her eye, the determination and the dedication. She wasn't going to change her mind.
"Please Ukita!" Makino persisted, his eyes drooping as he could feel more blood seeping into the ground bellow him. He could tell; he was a practicing medic after all. He could tell he didn't have much time left before he died of blood-loss. "Please. Even if we both made it back alive I'd be useless! I'll probably never walk again, you know that! You still have the ability to become a full-fledged ANBU, just like you've always dreamed!"
"I'm not leaving you here!" Ukita repeated stubbornly, though by now her emerald eyes were on his legs. He couldn't see them well from his position but he could feel the cuts inches deep in his skin. Her eyes were so absolutely not Ukita he almost wanted to shout something stupid and selfish just to make her smack him on the head and stop looking so goddamned helpless.
"As entertaining as this is, you're beginning to test my patience genin. Here's a little incentive." Before Makino could blink the blade at his teammate's neck flashed up, blood splattering on the ground as Ukita let out a heart-wrenching scream. Her hands flew up to her face as she collapsed to her knees, blood seeping from between her fingers. It dripped down her cheeks like replacement tears for the ones she could no longer cry. The nin smiled sadistically, licking off the bloody blade with his thin tongue. "And every extra minute you waste I'm getting rid of something else."
"Makino please!" Ukita cried, her head huddled to her chest as she shook with ragged gasps of pain.
"What should it be this time?" Makino growled in fury as the nin looming above his crippled teammate played with his chin mockingly. Suddenly his dark eyes brightened, and he turned to the nin crouching above him. "The girl may not be able to see your blood, but she can still hear you scream."
"MAKINO!!!"
"Ukita!"
Haruno Makino shot up in bed, pink hair flying wildly behind him in its long, bed-head ponytail. As his heartbeat finally began to slow he looked over to his wife who lay beside him in their bed, her face huddled cutely in the crooks of her arms. After a moment however, she moved sleepily, reaching her hand out blindly for Makino's own. He took it, holding it to his scarred face.
"It doesn't sound like Sakura's up yet… did you have a bad dream?" Ukita asked quietly, still sluggish and half-asleep, stretching her maimed arms awkwardly above her and looking blankly up at the ceiling with her covered eyes. Makino's silence came across as a 'yes', and she reached out to grab his shoulders, pulling herself closer to him. "We made it back. We're both still here, and that's the important thing."
"Of course it is." Makino relented, stroking his wife's pale bangs out from where they'd caught beneath the bandages covering the top half of her freckled face. "Are you awake enough to go and start breakfast?"
Ukita laughed, sitting up slowly. "If you mean I'm awake enough to be hungry, definitely."
Makino let out a laugh as well, clicking on his bedside lamp and easing himself from bed, wincing as pain twinged in his crippled legs. He looked down at them sadly, long, thick scars showing from beneath the bottom of his thin summer pajama bottoms.
"Here," Ukita slipped out of bed, Makino's hand on her shoulder guiding her, and stood up. Her red top fell slightly open, revealing the plain black lace of her bra. Makino would never tell anyone but one of the worst things about his wife's blindness was that her previously colorful uniform had become a continuous wash of blacks and grays. The only color she ever seemed to wear anymore was red, a color that carried good and bad memories for the both of them. "Careful now. Sakura's starting her life as a genin today, we can't have you back in the hospital like last time."
Makino laughed as his wife helped him walk clumsily to their shared dresser, sliding open a drawer and picking for them both simple, black and red outfits. He'd followed after his wife in her wardrobe choices, he couldn't help it. "It's not my fault my old legs get over-excited when our Sakura accomplishes something."
"Yes, well, tell those legs of yours I'll rip them open myself if they make my daughter miss her first day as a genin." Ukita threw back, pulling off her top and placing it hesitantly where she could feel with her hand the top of the dresser was. Makino just grinned, helping her into the tight red top. "Hey, this one feels too tight. Are you planning on getting me molested or something?"
"I'd kill anyone who tried!" he answered cheerfully, already done gracelessly slipping on an old pair of shinobi pants and fixing his fluffy, out of control hair.
"Okay, come on." Ukita said, following her husband out into the hall and down towards the kitchen, her thin hand on his shoulder. The couple had picked an old, one floor house for a reason, and she liked the comforting way each floor board felt different under her bare feet. Even without her husband's help it would've been hard for her to get lost in the simple set up.
"Eggs? Pancakes?" Makino asked after sitting Ukita down at the kitchen table, opening and closing the cabinets lining the short walls.
"Eggs please!" Sakura's cheery voice surprised Makino, who consequently dropped the flour he's been holding in his hands and swore under his breath as the white powder hit and covered the floor. He picked up a rag from the counter but as he bent his legs to kneel down he winced. "Here dad, let me get that."
"Thanks Sakura, you're a dream." Makino said sheepishly, standing back up and taking as few steps as he could before reaching over and grabbing the egg carton from the fridge. "Eggs it is then. So, how does the amazing Haruno Sakura feel, to finally graduate and become a genin?"
"Great!" Sakura raved, obviously prepared to talk on the subject for as long as her parents would let her. "I'm on a team with Sasuke too! You know, Uchiha Sasuke? The last Uchiha? He's amazing! Of course," his daughter's face darkened and she squeezed the powdery cloth out in the sink violently, "I got stuck with that Uzumaki idiot too."
"Uzumaki Naruto?" Ukita asked from the table, her chin resting on her hands, her elbows propped up on the table. If she was talking to another adult either 'The kyuubi container?' or 'Minato's kid?' would have come next, but she was just as aware as the next of the law stating she wasn't allowed to. "You complain about him a lot."
"Well, it's because he's a horrible idiot!" Sakura fumed, playing angrily with the zipper of her dress.
Makino laughed. "I remember your mother used to do the same thing. 'Ukita, what is this I hear about you beating up Inuzuka Tozowa?' 'Oh, I'm so sorry! He was just being such an insufferable idiot my fist acted on its own and punched him!'"
"Yuck." Sakura stuck out her tongue, finally sitting in the seat next to her mother at the small table. "I have an Inuzuka in my class too. Kiba. I'm just lucky I wasn't on his team. At least Naruto knows how to respect a girl's personal space to some extent."
Makino smiled, dishing out the eggs finished and still sizzling quietly in the pan. "Eat quickly. You've got five more minutes to go before you go and meet your jounin-sensei for a first day of training!"
"Oh- Ack!" Sakura shot up from her chair, her fork still holding a small bit of egg between its teeth. "Oh god I said I'd get there a little early!"
"Here then," Makino handed her a small, disposable take-out box and slipped her egg inside. "You can finish it when you get to training. From what I hear, your sensei will probably be late anyways." He could remember Hatake Kakashi from his days 'in limbo', the months after the accident but before he'd cut ties with the ninja world. From what he'd heard he was a prodigy, a deadly ninja, and always late.
"Thanks mom!" Sakura shot back jokingly, grabbing the box in her hands and heading out the door. "If Shoni comes by, tell him I say hello!"
"Sure thing honey!" Ukita shouted after her daughter, smirking to herself as the door slammed shut. "You are such a girl. First a medic-nin, and now the lady of the house. Tell me, how does it feel to experience such gender confusion?"
Makino punched his wife gently in the shoulder. "You're such a cruel person." He forced down the images that bubbled up at the mention of their genin days.
"Do you think she'll past Kakashi's test? I've heard he hasn't passed any of the teams he's tested in the past."
"What are you talking about? Of course she will, she's our daughter."
Ukita sighed to herself worriedly, staring at the wall with her sightless eyes. "That's what I'm worried about Makino…"
"Don't worry, I'm sure she'll be fine. Her team's makeup sounds classic- I'm sure the three of them will be getting along fine in no time." Makino stood up, kissing Ukita's cheek before dragging her to her feet. "Now, Do you think we should go do groceries, or go and hole up in our room until Sakura's home?"
"Makino-"
"Think about it Ukita." Makino spoke in a mock serious tone, grasping Ukita's shoulders in his hands. "Do you want to go out and slowly, painfully find our way to the market, Spend hours getting all the things we actually need, and then trudge all the way back here just because we should, or…"
Ukita giggled, pushing Makino back enough to make him fumble but not enough to actually hurt him. "I get your point." She hugged her arms around his neck gently, her finger tips brushing the thin ridges of scar tissue scattering her arms' tan skin and followed him down the hall and back to their bedroom. "Will you remind me why I married you again?"
"Because there are not enough people with naturally pink hair in this world and to remedy this problem we Haruno's need to breed." Makino explained slowly, as if to a child, making Ukita smile.
"But what if Sakura looked like me and ended up a blonde?"
"Off with her head!" Makino shouted, pushing Ukita suddenly back and onto the bed they'd finally reached.
"But what if we tried again and again and still didn't have any pink-haired children?"
"Haruno massacre!" Makino screamed, attacking Ukita and landing on top of her with an 'oof'.
"Don't be so loud!" Ukita scolded, though she was still smiling widely. "Do you want all the civilians to hear us and wake up? You should know it's only ninja who wake up at this ungodly hour.
"Let them come! I'll slice off the head of anyone who looks at you!"
"Now that's a massacre."
"Civilian massacre!"
"Makino-" Ukita whined, though after a moment she fell silent and she just hugged her husband's body with a quiet almost sadness. She'd never get quite used to the idea, them as civilians. Because they were. They couldn't fight or complete missions and their chakra points had been so damaged they'd have trouble completing a simple cloning technique. And even if she was still considered a shinobi it wouldn't make a difference; she still felt the pang of anger, fear, and disappointment anytime she didn't see something; every time she turned to face her daughter and didn't have any idea what she looked like. She still would never be okay, no matter how many titles were tacked to her name.
"Hey, Ukita," Makino said quietly, "Cheer up, okay? We're still here, and that's what's important. We can still grow old together, two senile old cripples."
"Who says I'm going to be senile?"
"All old people are senile. Remember Kiyoka? It took me three weeks to convince Tozowa we weren't dating."
"But in the end it was true. Maybe old people can just read the future."
"Ah, that sounds better. Two old psychic cripples living in a small, cruddy old house as their daughter runs off heroically into the sunset, spawning even more pink-haired hell children. It has a nice ring to it, you know?"
"Definitely Makino, definitely…"
Maybe, just maybe things weren't so bad. A little lonely, yes, a little frustrating. But she was content, and she couldn't think of anything more in the world she could wish for.
