Bridges and Pillars
Chapter 8: Don't piss off a Haruno
Disclaimer: If you want the real story, get off this site.
Days turned to weeks and pretty soon, everyone in the academy were used to the quiet baby known as Sakura Haruno as well as the boy who carried her around. While most of the students avoided any confrontation with Itachi, Hana and Itsuki, there were a few who were not that bright.
"Hey bishounen!" Itsuki turned at the loud voice, only to watch a fist fly towards his face. Itsuki gasped and tried to back away, his arms tightening on his sister. In the end the only that happened was the older boy's fist missing Itsuki's face—at the price of smacking into his baby sister's startled flailing hands. Itsuki landed on his back, coughing with the air knocked out of his lungs.
"Itsuki-kun!" Hana shouted, charging him from where she had been changing Kiba.
"Tch, stupid Bishounen!" the boy smirked, "you can't even dodge that? You were showing off your precious baby sister so much, I thought you were capable of that much!"
"Ga! You are such a—"
"Hana," Itsuki called, moving to his feet without using his hands for leverage. "Take her," Hana gasped, adjusting her hold on Kiba to cradle Sakura as well.
"Huh? What are you going to do, Bishounen? The only thing you ever do is dodge and apparently you're not even that great at it!"
"Itsuki-nii," Itachi called, moving to stand beside Hana. "Remember: three hits. No blood."
"Right," Itsuki nodded in agreement.
"huh? There's no way you can beat me, Bishounen!" the boy scoffed at Itsuki, "I'm the second best in Taijutsu!"
"Ninja Rule 83: never underestimate your opponents," the boy had no time before Itsuki was in front of him, a fist crashing into his own face. "Haruno Rule 1: Never let anyone hurt your precious people!"
"Tch freaking idiot! No one cares about your stupid civilian family rules!" The boy swung at Itsuki but he was pushed back with Itsuki's kick.
"My parents were Shinobi of the hidden leaf!" Itsuki barked at him, "They were forced to retire due to their injuries!"
"There's no ninja clan named 'Haruno'!" the boy replied, standing up again to attack. "You're just a civilian-born trying to be something you're not!"
"At least I won't attack someone holding a baby!" Itsuki shouted, "did you even notice that you hurt her?!"
"Maybe you shouldn't have brought her to the academy!" the boy shouted back.
"My sister is quietest with me! But I won't allow you to harm her! She's only a month old!" In the end, the boy was no match for Itsuki. The rose-gold haired boy's third punch landed just right to knock the boy out.
Three hits. No blood.
Just as he promised.
"Itsuki-kun," Hana called, "Come look at Sakura-chan. There's something wrong." In a breath of air, Itsuki was before his friends, storm blue eyes wide and panicked but all he saw was boysenberry-purple lines painted across alabaster skin. "What's wrong with her Itsuki-kun? I've never seen these marks before."
"It's nothing to be scared about," Itsuki sighed in relief. "Mama told me about it. It's something special to the Hattori clan." Itsuki carefully took his baby sister into his arms and cradled her to his chest. "There, there, I'm here Imoto. Don't cry anymore, I'm here." Sakura's baby blanket fell away to reveal her neck and mostly bald head, where the purple-black lines seemed to pulse and glow before shrinking and diving back into the diamond on her forehead. "Imoto was really weak when she was born, so Aunty Tsunade performed a special seal that would heal her. I guess it automatically activates whenever she gets hurt."
"So those lines were the seal Tsunade-hime put on her?" Itachi asked
"Yeah," Itsuki tightened his hold, "But… she doesn't know how long it'll last. Premature babies are renowned for their bad health. This seal could keep her alive for five or ten years but after that… she'll be on her own." He bowed his head and snuggled into the warmth of his baby sister, stifling his urge to cry. "We don't know how long she'll live. We just know that while the seal is protecting her life, it gobbles up a lot of chakra. Over usage could kill her."
"Then we'll just have to make sure it never comes to that," Itachi said, stepping forward to put an arm around Itsuki's shoulders. "We'll keep her safe."
"Yeah, there's nothing like an Inuzuka on a protection detail," Hana grinned at her friend. "We're the best at it!"
"I could name a few clans that are just as good at protection detail," Itachi replied with a smile.
"Hey! Don't steal my thunder!" Hana snapped, though the smile on her face was contagious.
Their desired effect was granted to them and Itsuki started laughing.
Itachi, Itsuki, and Hana sat at the dining room table, staring wide-eyed at their respective younger siblings who all sat in the playpen in the living room. Kiba was chewing on his blanket, Sasuke was sitting up and pointing at Sakura and Sakura was staring dully at the boys.
"Sau!" Sasuke declared seriously.
"Saku!" Sakura corrected sharply.
"Sau!"
"Saku!"
"Au!" Kiba laughed, howling like a puppy.
"Sau!" Sasuke declared, laughing joyfully.
"Hm! Sue!" Sakura declared hotly, pointing at Sasuke.
"No!" the boy looked mortified
"Au!" Kiba laughed with his baby-howl.
"oooh they be start'n wars already," Hana giggled.
"They're only sixteen months," Itsuki said, ignoring the fact that the boys were older by a few months. "Why would they be starting wars?"
"It's a baby-war," Hana giggled
"Emphasis on 'baby'," Itachi chuckled.
Tsunade couldn't tell if the war was progressing well in Konoha's favor or if it was winding down with the five nation's exhaustion. She was still head of the hospital and was going out of her way to test the faculty members on a weekly basis, after a year she's only found twenty candidates.
A year.
She's been retired from active duty for an entire year already. At least the training for the medical staff has increased. An observation from Itsuki about the number of orphans in the village prompted Tsunade to draft a system that could benefit the village in the long run. Simply put, orphans would be trained in combat as future shinobi of the village; at the age of ten years they would be given the right to choose if they wanted to go into the medical corps. The only exception would be very special cases, like those with photographic memories, better than average chakra control, or a faster learning speed than others their age. These selective children would be drafted into the medical corps with the expectation that they become qualified medics by the time they're twenty.
Hiruzen allowed a test run of it, he won't make it apart of the law without a test run. While she saw the benefits and appraised the growing number of medics (skilled medics no less) he was less than happy about his dwindling soldiers. It was less progressive then what she wanted to display but she understood that they were at war and medical training, like combat training, took many years to learn and implement.
In two or three more years, there'll be better results of the program.
"Nii! Anii! Anii!" Itsuki looked up at the giggly voices of his baby sister, "up! Up!"
"Don't you ever get tired of being held?" Itsuki asked, twisting in his seat to pull his baby sister onto his lap.
"No," she answered, snuggling against him just like a cat would.
"She's progressing a lot faster than the boys are," Itsuki could hear the concerned voice from Tsume in the kitchen. "I hope nothing's wrong with Kiba. Are babies supposed to be learning as fast as Sakura-chan is or is my boy slow?"
"I'm sure there's nothing wrong with Kiba," Mikoto reassured quickly. "I'm betting that Sakura-chan inherited her mother's intelligence. That's why she's progressing so quickly."
"Oh come on you two, I'm not that smart."
"Mebuki, you once set off an enemies' trap by mimicking his chakra-signal-pattern for his paper bombs."
"You isolated twelve teams and backlashed all their elemental jutsus in an hour."
"You were Jonin by the time you were sixteen."
Their conversation ended with a soft knock on the door.
"Got it!" Hana laughed as she jumped up and charged the front door, "oh! Uncle Hiashi! Uncle Hizashi!"
"You're late!" Mebuki called from the kitchen.
"Sorry," the Hyūga twins chuckled as they entered, "we weren't sure what to bring."
"Quite with the twin speak, it's annoying," Tsume shouted next.
"Alright, alright," Hiashi chuckled, "Hana-chan, will you take Hinata?"
"Uh-huh!" Hana eagerly took the quiet baby and hurried to the others. "Kiba! Look it! Hinata-chan is here!"
"Ah, then is Neji-kun here as well?" Itachi asked, looking up from his homework towards the Hyūga twins.
"Always so observant," Hizashi chuckled as he approached the living room full of children. "He's sleeping right now though," he trailed off, not looking at the bed nearby.
"There's a bed uncle Hizashi," Hana smiled, pointing at the baby crib.
"Thank you," Hizashi smiled.
"Will Tsunade-hime be arriving tonight as well?" Hiashi asked from the kitchen.
"Yeah, she'll be bringing dessert!" Mebuki laughed, "she's hanging back at the gates for now though. Shizune left on a mission and she should be returning today. Tsunade is waiting for word if she can't come or reach her when she does return."
"You make Tsunade-hime sound like an overprotective mother hen," Tsume laughed.
"Tsu?" Sakura called, perking up at the familiar name. "air? Tsu? Tsu?"
"She'll be here later, Imoto," Itsuki reassured with a smile.
"kay!" Sakura snuggled back into her brother's chest, smiling brightly.
"Alright, you little bookworms!" Tsunade called as she left the kitchen with a steaming pot, "Clear the table! We need to eat here!"
"Yes Aunty Tsume," Itsuki and Itachi called at the same time, rising and hurrying to gather all their papers. There was a ding and the children turned to see a part of the wall shift open to reveal a familiar wheelchair-bound man.
"Oh, you're done with work already?" Mebuki called with a smile.
"Yeah," Kizashi smiled tiredly. "The girls will change shifts in an hour so let's save them some dinner. As for the smithy, the boys today already went home."
"I'm still surprised that Hokage-sama allowed you to train genin for a month in each of those buildings," Hizashi called from the dining table where he appeared to be helping the boys clear it.
"I think he saw in the benefit of his shinobi knowing how to take care of their own tools," Tsume grinned. "It'll save him money in the long run if we all start taking care of them verse having to buy new ones all the time."
"Ah, I can see the benefit already," Mikoto chuckled from beside Mebuki. "Ever since Kizashi-kun taught Itachi how to care for his weapons, we haven't had to buy a new set! I'm so happy we're finally saving money."
"Mikoto, Itachi is five, remember? What are you doing giving him real weapons." Tsume stared at her friend in exasperation.
"Eh?" Mikoto looked at her friend in bewilderment. "I was four when I was given my first Kunai set."
"Its official, your clan is nuts," Tsume laughed as she began setting dishes on the dining table. "The Inuzuka clan doesn't give our kids real weapons till they're ten. They get weighted practice weapons when they're six though."
"Ah! So I only have a few more weeks till I get my first set?!" Hana asked excitedly.
"Ah, we give wooden weapons to our kids when they're four," Hiashi said as he started setting china dishes on the table. "We increase the weight with differently dense woods every year till they turn eight. That's when we give blunted metallic weapons."
"I'm beginning to think that Tsume is the who runs the weird clan," Mebuki giggled.
"Hey! I have to teach a hundred babies how not to eat everything they see!" Tsume pouted, "not to mention that anyone under the age of eight has this absurd fixation on chewing, peeing, and howling at anything and everything."
"Grandma says you were the worst at acting like a dog," Hana pipped up.
"Shut it Hana!" Tsume barked.
"I believe it," Mikoto and Mebuki giggled.
"Traitors!" Tsume glared at them.
"Anii! Anii!" Sakura called, wiggling in his hold, "ung-ri!"
"In a moment Imoto," Itsuki smiled, "Stay with the boys and Hinata-chan for now, okay?"
"K!" Sakura agreed as she was set down with the other three toddlers. "Um, daddy!"
"Hello sprite!" Kizashi chuckled, stopping his wheelchair near the edge of the baby blanket. "Have you been good today?"
"Uh-huh!" Sakura nodded, carefully ambling her way towards him. Kizashi lifted her into his lap without a word, smiling as she snuggled into him and began telling him about all the colors she learned that day.
Time Skip, eight months later
Tsunade hummed as she read through reports with one hand and cradled the year-old-toddler with her other. Said toddler was knocked out, several nurses had come barreling into the breakroom to complain about one thing or another (half of them not even noticing Tsunade) and still, the toddler remained unconscious. Tsunade didn't know where or how the toddler tolerated her so much, the baby would only sleep when three people were nearby: Tsunade, Shizune, and Itsuki. She'd sometimes nap if either one of her parents were nearby but those 'naps' were incredibly fragile states of silence. Tsunade thought it was awfully strange for a year old to sleep as much as the little Haruno girl did but the professional pediatrician she spoke to about it said it was normal amongst premature babies. Though they did admit that too much sleep could be a bad sign and to double-check for any infections in the body if the sleeping became too long. Apparently, prematures dealt with any internal injuries by literally sleeping their lives away. Thus came Tsunade's habit of double-checking little Sakura Haruno's organs once every two hours; at least on the days, the tiny toddler was in her care.
"Tsunade-hime!" Tsunade jumped with the sudden shout, half her attention latched onto her toddler who physically jumped with her and the other half clueing itself to the frantic looking Yamanaka that just barreled into the breakroom. The sight of him made Tsunade cringe, trying to hold back her lunch at the sight of the blood that was dripping down his person was getting harder to do as the second passed. "Tsunade-hime! Its Shizune!" She felt the baby lift her head, tiny fists clutched at her robe. "She's hurt! The other nurses said there isn't much they can do for her!"
"Shizu-anee?" Tsunade looked down at the wide-awake toddler, watching jade eyes fill with tears and a tiny heart-shaped face crumple into a look of fear.
"Where is she?" Tsunade asked, standing from her table and moving towards the Yamanaka.
"She's in the red-light room," the Yamanaka gasped for breath. "She got poisoned—whaa!" Tsunade thrust Sakura into the Yamanaka's arms with a sharp order to take care of Sakura before charging down the hall. The Yamanaka and Sakura stared at each other before looking down the hall again.
"Down," Sakura ordered bluntly, pointing at the floor for emphasis.
"No, you're slow," The Yamanaka retorted just as bluntly, moving to put the tiny baby on their hip and moving down the hall.
"Hm," Sakura stared up at the Yamanaka, pulling one hand back from their bloodied chest, Sakura observed her scarlet stained hand before looking back up into the face of the Yamanaka. "You a boy or a girl?"
"Is that really necessary?" The Yamanaka questioned, resisting the urge to get angry at the toddler.
"You girl get called 'nii-tan' is bad, you boy get 'nee-chan' that bad, so which you?" Her grammar was horrible and the Yamanaka seriously wanted to correct her but he knew it would do no good, the toddler was a little more than a year old.
"Do I really look like a girl?" he asked, sliding his teal eyes to look down on the toddler.
"Yes," was the blunt answer.
"I'm a boy," the Yamanaka replied with a heavy sigh.
"Ah," the girl got a wicked looking grin on her face. "Right, Anee-chan!"
"Oi! I said I'm a boy!"
"Yes, Anee-chan!" Sakura replied cheekily.
"You're going to call me that till I put you down, aren't' you?"
"Maybe," she answered.
Eight hours after arriving in the operation room and the three almost-dead shinobi were spared with Tsunade's presence in the room. Shizune would remain hospitalized for three more days due to chakra exhaustion. Her teammates would survive their wounds due to the fact that Shizune only fell into a chakra exhaustion coma because she spent every effort to ensure their lives. The three teammates would've survived just fine without Tsunade's interference but she helped them anyways. While Shizune remained in the hospital, Sakura slept with her, refusing to leave her 'older sister's' side till dusk when it was her older brother who pulled her away from Shizune.
"Hana-chan, will you please make your baby brother stop howling?" Hana looked up from her book to look at her teacher, then she looked at the statue-still boy she was bouncing with one leg. He was whimpering not howling but she could understand that he was causing just enough noise to be distracting to everyone else in class.
"Kiba, shut up," Hana ordered bluntly.
"au! Au!" Kiba whined pathetically. "Sssssa! Sssa! K-k-k-kuuuuu! Uwa!"
"Sakura?" Hana guessed, receiving excited nodding from her brother. "She's with Shizune-anee today. Be good and we'll see her later, okay?"
"No!" Kiba whined, "Sauwa! Sauwa!"
"Sa-KU-Ra," Hana corrected slowly. "We're not going if you keep messing up her name." Kiba's mouth snapped shut, his slitted irises looking large in his iris-less eyes. For a moment Hana thought she went too far but then her brother turned back to the window where he had been staring, his mouth firmly shut. Sighing in relief, Hana returned to her book. It still felt weird to her, how in strategy class it was Hana who was given the window seat while Itachi took the aisle seat. Either way, Itsuki was still in the center of their back-row seat. A shift of red cloth to her right had Hana glance at the rose-gold haired boy. Again he had moved his hand to cradle a body that wasn't there, he blinked in confusion, looked down at his lap, blinked again, and set his hand next to his paperwork where he was writing his notes.
After nearly two years of studying with his silent baby sister in his lap, this was the first time he didn't have her with him. Hana found it almost amusing to see him struggling with the lesson so much, he was so used to cradling a second body that he couldn't even read a book in peace. She knew for a fact he's read that page at least eight times by now.
"Oh for goodness sakes," Hana hissed and set her book down, making her honorary-brothers jump at her sudden movement. "Kiba! Be good," she hissed at her baby brother as she twisted and very nearly threw him into Itsuki's lap.
"Waa-whaa?" Itsuki stuttered out, his pencil dropping as he fumbled for a better hold on Kiba.
"Now will you please study?" Hana pointed a finger in Itsuki's face, "Your lack of concentration is distracting the rest of us!"
"Ah, um, s-sorry," Itsuki apologized, his arms already moving to comfort the fussing baby in his lap. When he turned to read again, he jostled Kiba gently, blinked at the book, flipped a page, smiled , and continued writing his notes. Hana smiled to herself, she continued glancing at her honorary-brothers throughout the rest of the class, her notes progressing as she worked in utter silence.
It was the end of class when Hana heard something unbelievable.
"Sak-uwa?" Kiba spoke slowly, staring up at Hana with big black slitted pupils. Hana was lost for words as she just stared at her baby brother. "See now? Sak-uwa?"
"Oh Kiba!" Hana cooed, clutching her baby brother close.
"Sawa? Air?" Sasuke asked, looking about with a sleepy look on his face.
"Sa-ku-ra," Itachi corrected with a gentle smile at his drowsy brother.
"No! Sawa!" Sasuke said sternly, or as sternly as a year and half old toddler could get.
"I guess we're not going to see Sakura-chan today," Itachi sighed heavily, clearly disappointed. "Sasuke can't say her name like Kiba could." Sasuke turned to look at Kiba curiously, seemingly not understanding the comparison.
"Sak-uwa!" Kiba repeated smugly.
"Sawa!" Sasuke snapped, only to receive a disappointed sigh from his brother.
You're so mean, Hana and Itsuki thought, staring at a disappointed Itachi as he cradled his baby brother.
"I guess we won't have dinner with you tonight, Itsuki-kun, Hana-chan," Itachi said in disappointment.
So mean! Hana and Itsuki thought.
"Sasuke still can't Sakura-chan's name right, so we really shouldn't—"
"Sax-wa!" Sasuke shouted suddenly. "Sax-wa! Sak-wa! Sak-wa!" Now he was on the verge of crying and with a sorrowful shriek shouted one last time: "Saaaa-kaaaa-uuuuuwwwaaaa!" yup, he was crying. It was official, Itachi created Armageddon by bullying his baby brother into saying a single name.
"Sak-wa!" Kiba laughed, "Sak-wa! Sak-wa! Sak-wa!" Sasuke took a deep breath, staring at Kiba with tearful eyes.
"Sak-uwa!" Sasuke belted, tugging at his brother's shirt and crying profusely.
"I think that's as close as they're gonna get," Itsuki smiled at Itachi. "Let's get to the hospital and get Imoto. I'm sure she's missing Kiba and Sasuke too."
"Hm, alright," Itachi nodded his head with a smile, "let's go."
Is it normal for a nearly-two-year-old to speak ANY kind of name clearly? The rest of the class questioned as they watched the three-some leave the classroom. Those three are so mean to their siblings!
"Ah, wait a moment," one of the girls gasped, "Did Itsuki-kun say they need to go to the hospital for his sister?"
"Does that mean something happened to little Sakura-chan?" another girl gasped.
"She's a premature baby right?" a boy asked, "Don't preme's have super bad health?"
"Yeah, premature's have super bad health for the first few years of their life," a Nohara-boy spoke up. "It's quite common amongst Prematures to not live past five years old do to health problems like orangs randomly shutting down."
"Dude! How can you say that with a straight face?"
"Dude, I'm a Nohara, I know a lot of facts like that!" the boy snapped back. "Nohara's are the village's medical clan, remember?! It'd be weird if I didn't know that!"
"So then, will Sakura-chan be okay?" one of the girls asked. "She's still so tiny and she's—"
"Before the village founding, it was quite common for premature's to die in their first month," the Nohara-boy shrugged. "But our medical facilities have advanced quite a lot since ninety years ago. So long as her family gets her to the hospital in time, she should have a slightly longer life expectancy."
"Only slightly?" a Nara asked
"huh? Well yeah," the Nohara shrugged. "Premature's from clans with bloodlines usually have longer lives but the Haruno family are civilians. There's no way Itsuki's baby sister is going to have a long life. Even if she does live past five, she'll be plagued with bad health till the day she does die. Her lack of physical health will also prevent her from becoming a proper shinobi. If she enters our school and somehow manages to survive to graduate, she'll be village bound. Nothing more than a ninja guarding the library at worst or one of the ninja that assessing missions to teams. Regardless, it's pretty rare for a Premature to live long enough to see fifty."
"But our medical facilities are the best out of the five nations," one of the girls tried to protest, her voice soft and weak sounding.
"True and they're always growing," the Nohara-boy shrugged again. "But whether or not our medical facilities grow to the extent of turning premature into a normal and healthy kid, well, that's up to fate. I highly doubt Sakura-san will be around long enough for that day though. Like I said, it's pretty common for premature's to live short lives."
"But there is a chance," the Nara-kid repeated.
"Huh, yeah, there is a chance," The Nohara shrugged. "No one knows the future after all. Sakura-san could live to be a hundred or she could live to be ten. Only heaven knows our fates."
"That's the second time," The Nara kid spoke up, watching the Nohara-boy stand up with his bag.
"What do you mean?" Nohara-boy asked as he started to trudge towards the classroom door.
"That's the second time you called Itsuki's baby sister by name," Nara-kid answered. "Why?"
"Isn't that her name?" Nohara-boy asked in return. "It's annoying to have to call someone 'so-and-so's baby sister or brother' all the time. It's just simpler to call that person by name."
He's finally growing up, the homeroom teacher smiled, pretending to work at his desk.
Maybe Itsuki-kun should punch him more often, the girls in the room thought with smiles and laughter.
Bishounen—is a Japanese term literally meaning "beautiful youth (boy)
Reviews are liked
Comments are loved
Help is adored
Hate is ignored
have a nice day in this chaotic time :)