Sakura Piros: Prologue

The sun shines down on the city of Mistral, bathing it in a warm glow. Outside a school parents wait to pick up their children and take them home. One man wearing a guards uniform looking amongst the crowd of children for his daughter and spots a familiar lion tail.

Smiling, he waves at her "Sakura over here!".

The seven year old Sakura runs over and hugs her father Kuro tightly around the waist, which he returns gladly. However he notices a plaster on her cheek and dirt marks on Sakura's favourite yellow yukata, before he can say anything she looks up at him with tears pricking the edge of her eyes.

"Papa am I a slave?". Kuro's eyes widen and he quickly kneels down to her, wiping the tears away.

"No you're not a slave. Who told you this Petal?".

Sakura tells her father as they walk home holding hands about how some older boys pushed her onto the ground during lunch, saying that was where she belonged and that her kind should have stayed as slaves. This greatly upset him, he knew eventually Sakura would encounter discrimenation for being a faunus and that he had suffered some himself for marrying his wife. It Came with living in Mistral unfortunately. He had hoped though that she wouldn't have encountered it till she was older and could process it better.

When they got home, Kuro sat Sakura down and explained that what those children did was wrong, that some people are just stuck in the old ways from Mistral's past. He also gave advice on how to deal with the boys who bullied her, to ignore them, tell a teacher at school or someone who can help if they get physical again and that eventually they will get bored, moving onto someone else. Sakura nodded her head and hugged her father, thanking him as the two smiled in a loving embrace.

Sadly while Sakura did apply her fathers advice and the bullies were no longer physically picking on her, emotionally and mentally they did not stop, even ignoring them only helped a little.

For two years she would constantly be called a slave, have her school books graffitied on, tail pulled. She would go home upset, angry and started to distrust humans thinking that all they would do is hurt her. She would never tell her father though and put on a fake smile when she came home, all the while quietly sobbing herself to sleep. Until one day they did something she could never forgive.

It was just like any other day, Sakura went to her bag up on her hook to get lunch and talk to her mother whom she kept a small picture of in the front pocket. But it was gone, her heart sank as she looked frantically through her bag. She knew it was in there, she put it in this morning. Then she heard an all too familiar voice coming from the classroom door, Sakura looked over and her eyes widened.

"Looking for this slave?" the leader of the group smiles holding the picture of Sakura's mother.

"Give that back!" she shouts "that's the only picture I have of her!".

He looks at the picture and smiles "Oh it is slave? Maybe if you beg we'll give it back haha" the boys laugh at the suggestion "If not, well then I just might" he tears the picture almost in half.

To Sakura the ripping sound went on for an eternity, something inside her snapped and she looked down speaking quietly as she trembled. "How…..dare you".

"Huh what was that slave? I couldn't hear you" the leader asks with a sly smirk.

Sakura looked up with pure rage in her eyes and cried out at the top of her lungs "How dare you! I will never forgive you!" She quickly ran and dived at him pinning the leader onto the floor, getting a few good punches on his face before being dragged off by his friends. But not before she managed to grab the torn picture of her mother. She was thrown to the ground. A couple of punches landed on her face but something was different, she didn't feel any pain from them like before. Instead an orange shimmer occurred when the hits landed, Sakura had unlocked her aura. After what happened the boys ran off leaving the groggy Sakura in a ball clutching the torn photo to her chest. She may have lost the fight, but she stood up for herself, Sakura couldn't help but smile.

After that Kuro decided enough was enough, that his daughter deserved to grow up in a place where she would not be hated or judged for what she is and thanks to an old contact he took a job as a guard for the City of Argus.

Two months pass and they've settled into their new life, Sakura is a lot happier at school and hasn't been bullied since starting. Also because Kuro felt horrible for not noticing what he daughter was going through a lot sooner, he decides to teach her some basic combat moves so she can defend herself should she ever get into a fight again.

On the day he is about to start teaching her, Kuro decides to have a talk with Sakura about what happened in Mistral. He tells her that she had every right to be angry at those boys and to do what she did, but he also says that anger can be a very slippery slope downhill and that if she is going to fight. It should be only when needed and in defense of others, never out of anger. His point is driven home even more so when he shows Sakura a photo of when he first met her mother, it's one she had never seen before.

"What is mum wearing in this papa and why does she have a katana?" Sakura asks.

"That's because your mother was a huntress Sakura, just like in those stories I read to you".

Her eyes widen as she looks at her mother in the picture, a smile is on her face as she leans on Kuro with an arm around his neck, blonde cat ears on her head.

"She was the most remarkable woman I had ever met" he smiles at the memory "Strong, proud of being a faunus and stubborn haha" he chuckles with Sakura.

"When I first met her I asked why she became a huntress. Do you know what she told me?".

Sakura shakes her head.

"She told me because someone had to help defend the world from being swallowed by the darkness of their own doing and prove faunus were able to be part of that".

Sakura mulls over those words as she bit her lip and looks into her fathers eyes "I want to become strong like mama".

Kuro smiles as she takes the picture "I thought you might, it won't be easy. But if you're anything like your mother, I know you can do it" Sakura giggled as her tail sways on the sofa. "But I want you to promise me three things, Sakura". He held up three fingers and folded them in as he sounded off the promises "One you never strike back out of anger. Two if you're going to fight, do it in defense of others and three. Be the best huntress you can possibly be".

He smiled warmly on the last promise as Sakura smiled back hugging him around the neck "I promise papa".

One day when Sakura is twelve, she has an encounter at school with a red hair tipped human who dove in literally to help defend her friend Cotton. As she helps Cotton up, the boy offers his help and holds out a hand for Sakura.

"Names Rohan Verde, those moves you did back there were amazing. Want to be friends?".

She raises her eyebrow at him, still a little distrusting of humans, but she had gotten better over the last two years and there was just something about how Rohan spoke, no malice behind his words or hidden agenda. Just honesty and admiration.

She takes his hand and smiles "You can call me Sakura and sure I guess so".

Rohan replies with a wide smile shaking her hand and says just one word. "Awesome".