Sakura's Inheritance
Sakura's Dream PoV
A young girl of about 5, sat alone in a small neighborhood park. She simply sat on the wooden edge of the sandbox and drew pictures in the dirt. Her hair was a light shade of pink easily compared to any pink flower, but as anyone who knew her, knew that she liked to be held in comparison to the short-lived cherry blossom flower. Hearing that had always left her feeling happier inside, knowing she seemed like her namesake.
Whenever she was happy like that she always attracted the attention of the people around her, many were always drawn to her even though she was so young. People always told her she was going to be beautiful when she grew up, but she never agreed with them. Everyone told her she had the eye color to rival rare gems, but she never believed them. Some one was always telling her she was as beautiful as a cherry blossom, but she knew no matter what that would be the only things they saw in her, even though they helped make her happier.
No one saw what she saw, her huge forehead, her delicateness, and her inability to fit in with children her own age. Everyone told her she was simply petite, and unique as the individual stars. But she never attracted any friends, only the adults who were friends with her grandfather's company, and her grandfather had probably told them to say all those things to make her happy.
"Are you okay?" Asked a voice from behind me.
"Hmm?" I turned around and saw a young blonde girl standing behind me. Some of her hair fell in front of her left eye and she held most of her hair in a high ponytail while leaving the rest to sit on her shoulders. "Who are you?"
"I'm Deidara, and I am 11 years old."
"I'm Sakura Haruno, I'm 5 years old."
Deidara raised his eyebrows, surprised. "That's a pretty name… But why are you sitting here all alone? Certainly you have friends."
"Not anyone my age…my forehead is too big or I'm not strong enough…everyone is mean to me because of the way I look or act."
"So, I'll be your friend! I'm certainly a bit older than you but it shouldn't be so much of a problem. Anyway all those kids that have made fun of you have just never seen someone unique like you. Remember that every moment is different and there's never anything you can repeat exactly."
"Okay…"
The rest of my day at the playground was spent with Deidara playing with me. He never seemed to get tired of anything I did. But the day came to end too soon and I had to leave to get home on time. My house was only just down the street but Deidara still asked whether I wanted him to protect me on my way home. I answered no but he asked me to wait for a second and he dug around his pocket for a minute.
"Here. I made it." Deidara pulled out a small clay bird and placed it into the palm of my hand. "You can keep it and put it on a necklace. It's so if we ever see each other again we know who it is and it will always be a nice reminder of each other because I have one just like it." Deidara pulled out his necklace and showed it to me. "I never take it off."
"Don't you live in this neighborhood?"
"Actually yes. But I'm moving tomorrow so I probably won't see you again for a long time."
"Then I'll never take my necklace off either." I replied with a grin. "But promise to never forget me, okay?"
"As long as you don't forget me."
I jumped up to Deidara and hugged him around the neck. "Thanks for playing with me today. I hope I get to see you again."
Then I ran off towards my house to hurry home before my tears started to well up.
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It had been a week since Deidara left and I was lonely again. My parents had to go to a meeting and had left me with Grandpa Sarutobi. I usually loved to go to my grandfather's house since it was so big but I was upset because Deidara had left. But I kept to my promise; I wore the necklace everyday and never took it off.
"Hello Sakura. How are you doing today?" Asked Grandpa.
"Hi Grandpa." I answered quietly.
"Sakura are you okay? You don't seem to be as perky as usual, has something happened?"
"No, not really, Grandpa. It's just that my first and only friend left our neighborhood and moved far away a few days ago. Now I have no one to play with."
"Well Sakura, I certainly can't bring your friend back but I could use your help with something and I'm sure it's something only you could do." Answered Grandpa.
"Really?" I asked feeling excited for once in a week that I could do something special for my grandfather. I wondered what it was as Grandpa led me through the hallways of his big mansion and as he started to head towards the guest rooms. "So what is it?"
"It's not a what it's a who, Sakura. You know how my house is a temporary place for children to stay when they no longer have parents, right?"
"Yes, it's called a foster home, right Grandpa?" I answered and secretly hoped my parents would never die.
"Yes, that's correct. A young boy came in a few days ago and he's about your age. He's extremely quiet and doesn't talk much. He doesn't like to come out of his room and doesn't seem to stop drawing." Said Grandpa. "I was hoping you might get him to open up a bit."
"I'll try."
We stopped outside the room and Grandpa opened the door. There in a corner was a young dark haired boy who was drawing on a sketchpad. He didn't even look up when we entered the room.
"I will leave him with you, Sakura." And Grandpa walked off leaving me with the boy.
"Hello my name is Sakura. What's yours?"
"…" No answer.
"Why won't you talk?"
"…"
I decided to just sit down in front of him. Eventually he would have to move from his position or get numb legs. I learned that the hard way, to never cross my legs for long periods of time like that, because it always hurt a lot afterwards.
He still didn't move. It felt like hours but I knew it had probably been only 30 minutes.
"Are you going to even move? Do you breathe?" I asked waving my hand rapidly in front of the boy's face.
I wasn't going to give up. I felt I would just be plain stubborn and stare at him until he stopped.
I quickly fell asleep…
Later I woke up on a bed with the sheets pulled over me. It was the boy's room and Grandpa had just walked in.
"Sakura it looks like you've made some progress with Sai."
"I haven't made any progress he isn't here and hasn't talked to me once!"
"It's not so much actual talking but the fact that he moved you to the bed, that shows you've made an impression with him."
"Really?"
"Yes…I really think you have."
My parents' meeting turned out to take longer than what was originally expected, so I got to stay with grandpa for another day, which meant I could get that boy, Sai to talk.
After another day went by, he still wouldn't talk, and I simply refused to give up and sat there in front of him until I fell asleep and he would move me again. I woke up one last time to find, Sai wasn't in the room and my parents were waiting at the door. They looked dusty as if they had been in the attic but I quickly brushed the thought off.
"Sakura, did you miss us? We're going home now, to where you can sleep in your own bed." Announced my mom cheerfully, though she seemed a bit worried, as I would later notice.
"Aw, but I never got Sai to speak to me…" I answered disappointed that I had failed my grandfather's request.
I felt someone step up behind me. I turned around and saw it was Sai, he had this really odd smile on and he was holding a paper out to me. I took it from him and saw it was a picture of me staring at him. He drew way better than any other kid I had ever seen before.
"It's for you, for being my model. Anyone else would have fidgeted." He said.
"Now what do we say Sakura?" Asked my mother in a reminding tone.
"Thank you." I was still shocked by how well he drew. It was like how I had seen older kids draw.
By the next time I went back to my grandpa's house, Sai had already begun school, and was never home while I was there.
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A month after I had met Sai, my parents had another meeting to go to, this time my grandfather was a bit too busy with his work and foster home since he had just accepted a new boy and wanted to help him settle in. So I ended up going with my parents to their meeting/convention.
The convention was being held in a huge hotel that was really crowded and busy. But my parents met up with an old friend of theirs to take care of me. It sort of reminded me of their attempts at secret Christmas shopping; they would leave me with someone and duck off somewhere else.
"Hello Madara!" Said my mom.
"Hikari, how are you doing? I haven't seen you in a long while, and is this little Sakura you were always talking about? She's gotten so big compared to those pictures you gave me." Answered the waist length black-haired man, that my mom had called Madara.
My dad shook Madara's hand and whispered something I couldn't hear to him. Madara quickly nodded in an answer.
"So is there anything I can do for you two? I'm just here looking after my nephews; Sasuke and Itachi, while their parents are off somewhere else. Probably talking with some government workers again." Madara ended with a frown as if disapproving their work with the government.
This made me curious because Mom always said you can always trust the government, but Madara seemed to not trust the government or his nephew's parents…but why did he call them "their parents" if "Sasuke and Itachi" were his nephews? Wouldn't that make their parents some brother or sister of his? The man's behavior just made my head hurt with questions so I gave up.
"Do you mind if we leave Sakura with you?"
"No, not at all! Sasuke and Itachi probably need some social activity with other children besides their cousins anyway."
"Okay then, Sakura we're leaving you with Madara. Stay with him, don't get separated, and remember your manners." Said Mom.
I nodded "yes" to all of these conditions and watched my parents walk off into the crowd. I turned to Madara.
"What should I call you, sir?" I asked politely as I could, it was always better to be overly polite than to be rude.
"Oh don't call me sir. I'm only 20 years old, and if you call me sir the boys will probably start saying it too just to make me feel old. Just call me Uncle Madara." Answered Madara.
"Okay…"
"Do you mind if I go and grab Itachi and Sasuke from their parents first?"
"No."
Madara led me through the crowd and soon brought me to an office like area. Off in the corner were two boys standing straight as soldiers besides people I assumed to be their parents. I only expected them to be the boys' parents because they looked so much a like but they still ignored the children standing right next to them.
"Fugaku, I'll take the children from you. You don't have to worry about them anymore." Madara answered the older man's glare with a grimace.
The two boys looked at their uncle and then me. Their father gave them a hateful glare and nodded, the boys moved from their places and joined Madara. We left the room and the older man continued to glare at us until we exited the area, I could feel it.
We got back into the main lobby and Madara turned to all of us.
"Okay Sakura, the older boy is Itachi and Sasuke is his younger brother, Sasuke and Itachi this little pink haired beauty is Sakura." Said Madara in a cheerful and quick introduction. "So are any of you hungry?"
We all nodded silently.
"Okay how about ramen? Itachi, I'm sure they'll have tea and miterashi dango nearby for you."
Itachi and I both perked up at that statement.
"Oh so you're not much of a ramen person either, Sakura? Well I'm not sure if I have enough change on me right now to pay for two orders of miterashi dango, so you'll have to share. Sasuke on the other hand can be held over by anything with tomatoes in it." Madara answered our looks with a grin.
We all exited the hotel and walked down the street to a small area of high-class food stands. I didn't even know food stands could be fancy.
Madara stopped to buy something for himself and moved on. We walked by a small dango shop and Madara bought a small box of miterashi dango, and then moved onto a small stand that sold tomato filled onigiri. We all moved on to a main area were everyone was sitting down to eat and sat down at a mostly empty table with only a young blonde boy sitting there.
"Do you mind if we sit here?" Madara asked the young boy.
"No," he slurped up what seemed to be the remains of an extra large serving of tonkotsu ramen. "My name's Naruto what's yours?"
"I'm Sakura."
"…Itachi."
"Sasuke."
"I'm Madara, but just call me Uncle Madara. So what are you doing here alone?"
"I'm waiting for my perverted uncle to come back from the convention. So he left me here with money for my lunch and told me to wait."
Madara started talking to Naruto while the rest of us began to eat. Sasuke immediately started to eat his tomato rice ball with delicate bites, making him look like a girly little princess but he was probably savoring the taste. I looked at the package of dango that Madara had set down in front of Itachi and I. Itachi picked it up, opened it, picked up a stick and began to eat.
I looked at the package again and silently wondered if it would be considered rude to just start eating it. Itachi finished his stick and set it down and silently handed a fresh stick to me as if aware how I felt. I accepted it gladly and began to eat. I quickly finished mine and saw that Itachi was about to start on the third and last stick. I stared at it and watched Itachi pause. He stopped what he was doing and turned the stick towards me.
I stared at him and understood what he was silently offering. I bit the dumpling at the end off and happily began chewing again. Madara and Sasuke silently stared at me and Naruto joined in after seeing what they were doing.
"What?" Asked Itachi.
"You never share the last stick of dango with anyone, nii-san." Answered Sasuke. "Not even me."
"Sasuke's right, Itachi. You're always protective over the last stick of dango, you even almost broke three of my fingers when I came too close to your plate of dango, once when you were younger. I wouldn't doubt that you would even find someway to exile me from this family and get a restraining order for all your future dango."
"…"
"Is that true?" I asked in surprise.
"Maybe…" Itachi answered vaguely.
"DON'T GIVE ME "MAYBE" YOU LITTLE EVIL SWEET TOOTHED DEMON! I KNOW YOU WOULD SO DON'T EVEN TRY COVERING UP YOUR EVIL INTENTIONS OF GOING TO ANY LENGTH TTO PROTECT YOUR DESSERTS!"
Yelled Madara while foaming at the mouth…I wondered whether he had rabies.
"I'd go to those lengths to protect Sakura, too." Answered a calm Itachi.
I blushed.
"WHAT ARE YOU CALLING ME? A PEDOPHILE?"
"What's a pedophile?" I asked not knowing what the word meant.
"Sakura, it's when a really old person likes children, someone like Uncle Madara." Itachi answered and began laughing at Madara's expression.
"I AM NOT A PEDOPHILE!" Shouted Madara. "SASUKE, NARUTO, TELL ITACHI I'M NOT A PEDOPHILE!"
Sasuke and Naruto moved to our side of the table away from Madara. This just made Itachi laugh even harder.
"Madara you are supposed to be the responsible adult here yet you're the one that is unreasonably being provoked by young children, such as us."
"You know…you are the most irritating person…I have ever had the terrible luck to know." Replied Madara through gritted teeth.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
We all continued to converse and argue over whether we should side with Itachi or Madara. Then an older man with white hair to rival Madara's hair length stepped up and told Naruto it was time to go. Naruto whined that he didn't want to leave yet; he had only just started to make friends when another boy who looked older than Itachi stepped up and told Naruto that they should get going.
The new boy had silver lopsidedly spiked hair. He gave the rest of us a glance and introduced himself as Kakashi.
"But Grandpa, look at all the friends I've made."
"Naruto you'll make friends where ever we go, why don't you just leave something with them so they'll remember you." Replied the sage-look-alike man.
"That's a great idea!" And Naruto turned and gave me his orange and blue chopsticks, the ones he, gladly, hadn't eaten with.
The old man had already started to walk off with Kakashi following, so Naruto ran after them both while yelling a quick goodbye.
"Well that's our signal that it's probably time to go." Announced Madara as he got up from the table.
We all began walking back towards the hotel and for a few minutes Itachi and Sasuke disappeared. I looked around while still following Uncle Madara, and saw them heading back towards us with something in their hands. We'd reached the hotel by the time they caught up with us.
"Since this is likely the last time we ever see each other Sakura." Said Itachi.
"We wanted to give you this." Added Sasuke as he handed over what looked like a waving cat bracelet. "It's for good luck. And it'll help us recognize each other if we ever meet again."
"Thanks!" I jumped up and hugged them both around their necks, and in the process knocked their heads together.
Madara and I dropped off Itachi and Sasuke with their parents again. They both looked depressed again but hid it with their stoic faces.
"You really did some good for those kids, and if you know what kind of family they come from they really needed it." Said Madara before he spotted my parents and bid me goodbye.
That was the last time I ever saw him.
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It was getting late in the year and becoming cold again like it did every winter. I was making my daily trips to the park in spite of the weather. I was still alone, ever since Deidara met me here at the park, I had only made friends to only loose them soon after. This time I would be the one to find the friend.
I went to my usual spot at the sandbox only to find it occupied by a young red haired boy and his two stuffed animals. One was a teddy, dirty with age and the other a tanuki holding a jar of sand that looked rather clean. An older red haired boy sat near by watching over who I assumed to be his sibling, and he was working with a piece of wood.
I sat down next to the little red haired boy, which startled him. He gave me a quiet stare and looked surprised by what I was doing.
"What?" I asked.
"No one ever likes to be near me. They think I'm scary." He answered.
It was then I noticed that this was older than me, yet he was still alone. He was worse off than me.
"I'll be your friend." I determinedly replied to the boy. "My name is Sakura Haruno and I'm almost 6 years old. What's your name?"
"I'm Gaara and I'm eight years old. The older boy is my cousin, Sasori. He doesn't like to talk very much and doesn't like noise, so that's why he makes puppets."
"Puppets?"
"He makes them out of those tiny pieces of wood he carries around. Then when he's done he dresses them up in clothes that he sews for them, but he says it doesn't make him girly. I don't really agree with that."
"Gaara, are you explaining to that young girl how you will quit assuming I'm feminine because I sew or are you just complaining because you're jealous that I can do things you can't?" Asked Sasori.
I walked over to Gaara's older cousin.
"Do you want to join us? Or do you want help making your art?"
That's seemed to be what he wanted to hear because he became very happy all of a sudden.
"Finally! Someone realizes I'm not gay, I simply I have an interest in the art form of puppet making! Puppets always last longer than other art forms because they're forever!"
"You mean this won't last very long?" I asked worriedly while offering Deidara's necklace. "A friend of mine gave this to me, because he wanted to be able for us to recognize each other in the future. He said it would last a long time."
Sasori began to look at it and Gaara came up beside me.
"Well your friend was right. This would last a while, just not in the same quality as it is now. What you want to do is get a protective coating to help this last longer, but I can't guarantee that it would stay the same forever."
"Oh…Thanks!"
The rest of the day was spent playing with Gaara in the sand, much like I had with Deidara, except we stayed at the sandbox. Deidara had taken me everywhere, on the swings, the slide, and helped me across the monkey bars, but I was okay with the sandbox since it was where I usually stayed. It quickly became time for me to leave.
"It's getting late Gaara. We have to call Granny to come pick us up."
"Okay, Sasori." Gaara got up and dusted his pants off. He then turned to me. "Here you can keep this." He said as he offered the tanuki stuffed animal to me. "It'll be a reminder of me."
"Okay com on Gaara. I just called Granny and she's on her way over here. She said she'd be over here in about a half an hour. Sakura, could you come here for a second, too?" Sasori asked me, as he bent down to my level. "As a gift for not immediately judging me." He said as he offered me a small miniature version of myself in a red dress with a white circle on the bottom. "It's a marionette and you control it's movements with its strings. It's my personal favorite so far."
I quietly blushed and hoped that he was only referring to the puppet.
"Thank you." I said quietly before running off in the direction of my house while blushing very hard. Sasori had sort of reminded me of how Itachi promised he would protect me as much as he would his own desserts.
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The next day…
I woke up in a blindingly white room with the smell of sanitizer all around me. This definitely wasn't my room and I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there. My head was throbbing and it made me feel nauseous. I turned to my left and saw that there was a trashcan nearby as I wasn't very sure were the bathroom and toilet where. I threw-up.
After I finished, I wiped my mouth on a towel handed to me by someone; I looked up and saw she was a nurse. I was in a hospital. The nurse checked my bandages that I had noticed were around my head and made sure she couldn't get anything for me.
"Wait, where am I?"
"In the children's ICU, at the hospital." She said before leaving the room entirely.
About half an hour later another bed was mover into the same room as mine. It was an older boy who looked as if someone had tried to tear him apart. Half his face was covered in bandages covering his left eye. The rest of him had gauze preventing him from bleeding anymore. The nurse introduced him as my new roommate.
A few minutes later the boy woke and sat up in his bed. He looked around and saw me. His face quickly changed from a rather depressed look to one of slight surprise.
"I've seen you before."
I tilted my head slightly wondering what he was talking about. He seemed safe but that didn't mean he wasn't crazy.
"You're that little pink haired girl that Naruto is always talking about, the one I saw at the convention earlier this year…your name is Sakura."
I slowly remembered him; it was sort of hard to do with my head injury. "You're the spiky haired kid, the one with silver hair, Kakashi, right?"
"So what got you in here, Sakura?"
"I don't even remember, all I know it that we're in the children's ICU at the hospital. I probably just had a really big fall. I'm sometimes clumsy like that." I answered happily, even though I knew that if I had fallen my parents would have been here when I got up. But maybe they went downstairs to eat, and to bring me something. "Well what happened to you?"
Kakashi's happiness immediately dropped and he reached for the cloth covering his left eye.
"I remember everything. I was in a car accident with my two best friends, Rin and Obito, the paramedics came and saved us all from the wreck but couldn't save Obito. I was starting to black out when he swore that if he was going to die, I was to have his eye…Apparently the transplant was successful."
I slowly realized what that meant. Kakashi was tearing up with his one visible eye, and had become silent. I slowly got up from my bed and wobbled over to his to give him a hug. He accepted it with out fighting and picked me up and brought me into his bed before continuing to hug me. I could fear his tears running down his face and onto the back of the hospital dress I had on.
3o minutes later Kakashi stopped crying and two nurses came into our room with clipboards in their hands. I knew I probably wasn't supposed to be out of my bed but I didn't care, I was comforting a friend. The nurses didn't remove me but instead looked at each other with sad looks on their faces, almost looking as if they were regretful but admiring children reaching out to each other. The taller nurse started first.
"Kakashi," Kakashi flinched as she began as if he feared what she would say. "The young girl you were with survived the crash without any physical damage. Your friend Obito's body has been chosen to be cremated by his family and because you have no other relatives because of your father's suicide, you are to go to a foster home immediately."
"Sakura," I was also worried about what the other nurse would say to me. "You are to be driven to your grandfather's foster home/estate and are to live there with your remaining relatives."
"Remaining?"
"Your parents were killed in a case of homicide last night, the concussion you received was because you ran from the sight of your dead parents and fell onto concrete." She replied with almost no emotion showing through in her voice.
I began to cry, I gripped onto Kakashi and cried. He only patted and rubbed my back as I mourned my parents' deaths. We were probably going to be separated and my parents were dead. I could only be glad that I would go to live with my grandfather and his foster kids, but on the other hand Kakashi would likely be forced to go to a far away foster home instead of with me.
A social worker came in to notify Kakashi of were he was going. We both perked up when we heard that he was going to the same place I was, he just had to stop at an office building to get his papers straightened out. Before he left, he gave me his stuffed scarecrow doll to take care of for him until he met up with me at my grandfather's house. Yes he did agree it was a bit ridiculous to still have a stuffed animal, as a teenager but he wasn't worried by what others thought of him. And after that, we separated.
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I woke up gasping for air. I looked around the room I was in. It hadn't changed since my childhood. My captor was back and had found me. I only found comfort in my dream, the people I had cared for and looked for so long had been sitting in front of me this entire time. I had found my lost childhood friends and was satisfied with the completion of my hopes, because I certainly wouldn't be escaping this place a second time unless it was in a body bag. So I was determined to go down kicking.
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Yeah I know I said it would be a long while before I updated again but I was struck by inspiration, quite literally in fact, a friend of mine hit me over the head with my comic and I had this idea about a concussion and so on…
I didn't post the "Sorry, this might not be updated for a while" note as a separate chapter, like some authors do for a reason. If I did that, all the people who read my stories with a alert something or other, would see a new chapter alert in their e-mail boxes and they would check it out then become depressed by the little note…
Yeah the overall chapter is light and fluffy compared to the childhood angst/tragedy end but oh well, bonding also occurs through sharing traumatic experiences together. (And you can bet Kakashi never got his precious stuffed animal back either, since Sakura disappeared on the way to her grandfather's place, note: see first chapter/ Kurenai explanation part.)