come away to the water

a kind man's daughter

Sakura woke to the sound of birds chirping early in the morning. Too early. She was exhausted from her long night and her restless sleep. She could hardly manage more than twenty minutes of rest at a time, her mind plagued by the image of that one red eye, staring boldly up at her. It had been a long time since she'd failed in her duties. Then again, she had never come across someone so alive on the battlefield before.

She rose from her cot slowly. Whatever he was, whoever he was, he wouldn't be alive for much longer. His heart may go on beating, but his life…that would be gone. That she knew for certain. She had seen it many times before.

"Sakura-chan, stop lazing about, you have work to do!" her father's voice called to her from outside her door. She dressed slowly, too. Her fingernails had the faintest trace of blood, deep along the nail beds. She had scrubbed, and scrubbed, but she just couldn't seem to get it all off. That always had been her toughest challenge with this work. Coming home and cleaning herself of it. She wondered if her sister had the same troubles.

Her father called to her again, his kind voice carrying the edge of impatience.

"Coming, Papa!" she called back, slipping her tunic over her head and her feet into the thick socks that were made of the warmest, itchiest wool their sheep would yield. With one last glance to her bloodstained fingers, she snatched up her work gloves and made her way to the kitchen, where her father and sister were waiting.

"Hinata-chan prepared breakfast alone this morning, Sacchan," her father chastised, but still pushed a plate of dry, brown bread with salt and boiled eggs toward her.

"Sorry, Papa," she said before lifting a piece of the bread to her lips. At her father's raised brow, she dropped it to the plate. "And thank you, nee-chan. Itadakimasu." This time, no one interrupted her from shoving the large bite into her mouth. Killing was hard work; she hadn't realized how hungry she was until the food was before her.

"The washing will need to be done today," her father said as he reached over to her plate to peel her egg. She never managed to get a clean peel the way he and Hinata did. He said it was because she lacked patience.

"I can do it, Kizashi-ojii-san," Hinata said softly, her head bowed down toward the table, and her dark hair falling in a curtain around her face. "Sakura-chan is better with the chickens, anyway." Sakura hated the chickens, and Hinata knew it. She didn't argue, though; Hinata was much better at removing blood from their clothes and Sakura had plenty of that to be taken care of.

Placated, her father swept away the discarded egg shells from the tabletop and headed out the little wooden door to the dewy morning that awaited them outside.

"You have blood on your fingernails, Sakura-chan," Hinata pointed out. Sakura scowled down at her hands, and then at Hinata's; hers were immaculate, as always. She ate her egg in two big bites and pushed the plate away.

"Come," she said, holding a hand out to her raven-haired sister. "I'll dress your eye and you can take my bindings out to the washing basin." Hinata tilted her head back to look at her, the long black hair falling aside just enough for the gaping hole in her face to be visible. With a small nod, she slipped her hand into Sakura's and they went to Hinata's bedroom to get ready for their day.

Hinata's eyes were so special. Sakura didn't quite understand how special, only that the Mist shinobi had been so keen on them, that they had plucked that big eye straight out of little Hinata's head. Her father had balked the first time he saw the empty socket left behind, but it had never fazed Sakura. Hinata had another, perfectly good eye to use. Besides, Sakura was accustomed to gaping wounds, having delivered quite a few herself.

It was nice to have someone by her side now. It had been lonely, the first few years that she had spent prowling the battle torn lands, taking the lives of the Leaf shinobi that lingered under the mists. They were always so upset when she came to them. She tried to be gentle, to lead them to the afterlife comfortingly, but it was against the nature of humanity to resign themselves to death so easily.

Hinata was quite good, too. Her hands were not as strong as Sakura's, but she was always swift with her kills, and far less bloody. And she could see through the mist so easily, with that special eye of hers, which meant that they could get through battlefields much more quickly, and Sakura could rest assured she hadn't missed anyone. She would hate to have left someone behind.

Sakura hadn't realized there were so many ways to use chakra. Hinata was teaching her, little by little, all the different ways chakra could be used. She knew so much, but she always told Sakura that there still so many things she didn't know about it herself. She said she had even gone to a shinobi school, where she trained and learned about these things. Sakura had only ever learned about chicken coops, and shearing sheep.

Hinata said she had never seen chakra like Sakura's before, though. Sakura thought that was strange, that the only way she knew how to use it. She wished she could learn Hinata's method, though, because that would save her a whole lot of cleaning up afterwards. She sighed as she peered down at her bloody nail beds.

But it was impossible. Hinata said her method only worked when paired with those special eyes of hers—Byakugan, she'd called them. It. Her pair was a single now, but Hinata's eyesight was still far sharper than Sakura's when those veins rippled under her skin.

"How is the headache?" Sakura asked as she inspected the gaping socket in her sister's head.

"Not too bad," Hinata said, but Sakura thought that perhaps she was lying. Last night had been a particularly long one, and Hinata's eye had worked hard. It wasn't her one ghostly eye that was troublesome, though. The trouble came with the empty socket beside it, because when Hinata activated her Byakugan, the veins on her left would still emerge, but with nothing to latch onto.

Sakura very carefully cleaned Hinata's delicate, scarred skin of the dried blood that had pooled there. This was the only instance in which Sakura could clean up better than Hinata. Sometimes the big things—the scary things, like a man opened from neck to navel, or a missing eye—were too much for Hinata to handle. Sakura didn't mind handling those things. As far as she was concerned, it was a fair trade so long as she never had to scrub her own bindings again.

Once Sakura had finished with Hinata's eye, the girls separated to complete their chores. Sakura sighed as she stepped out of her small cottage and into the misty morning. She really did hate that chicken coop.

She was certain the chickens hated her as deeply as she did them. Either that or they sensed her trepidation and preyed on it. She would likely never know the truth, but when those beady black eyes turned to her, she knew she was in for it. She had seen many battlefields and she knew a violent creature when she saw one.

She tried to be gentle when she approached the nests to gather and collect the eggs, but it was no use. They knew her weakness, and they were ruthless in all their pecking and poking. One particularly vicious bird pecked straight through her work gloves to her finger, drawing blood, and Sakura sighed as she lamented all the time she'd wasted on cleaning her bloodstained skin, only to have it bloodied again by these little feathered monsters.

"I can't wait to pluck you," she grumbled at the mean bird as she backed away in surrender. It pecked at her in defiance.

Thankfully, the other animals on the farm were far less antagonizing. She was able to gather milk from the goats with no trouble at all, and when her father called her to help herd the sheep so he might sheer them, they gave her little trouble as well. It was just those damned birds, with their cold eyes. Goats and sheep had nice eyes; big and round and warm.

Humidity clung to her skin in a thick layer, dampening her clothes as the sun rose high on their dewy day. She had never lived anywhere where the air didn't thicken until it was almost too hard to breathe it in. In some ways, she found it comforting; a blanket for her hair and skin and lungs. Hinata hated it. She said that the weather in Konohagakure was much nicer.

Sakura didn't contradict her, but she thought that Hinata could hardly remember it, having been stolen when she was so young. She wanted her sister to cling to her happy memories, the way this humidity clung to Sakura's skin. A warm blanket to comfort her when little else could. Sakura would not begrudge her that.

The day passed quickly once the chickens had been dealt with, at least. Before she knew it, the humidity was reaching unbearable heights, and she was trudging back into their cottage to escape its hold. She wondered what the Konoha nin who endured this weather for the first time thought of it. Hinata had a hard enough time adjusting to it still, and she had been held captive in Kirigakure for years.

A red eye glowed in the back of her mind, contrasted against one deep, frantic grey eye and she thought that perhaps the thick air here was simply too heavy for the Leaf to bear. She hoped that he didn't suffer long, wherever he ended up. She sighed, knowing that tonight she would have to be better. She had failed in her task the night before, letting that boy be captured. She would make amends for it, one way or another.

Hinata baked more brown bread while Sakura prepared the stew for dinner. As always, it would be dense and dry, but warm and filling, and as always, it would get them through the work to come.

Hinata's footsteps were softer than any wool they'd ever procured from the sheep when she approached Sakura's bed, basking in the moonlight.

"Ojii-san is asleep," she whispered as she pulled gauzy grey robes out from Sakura's dressing trunk and laid them out for her, alongside her clean bindings. "Are you ready, Sakura-chan?" Hinata asked as she pulled out the final piece of Sakura's ensemble; a heavy kunai, emblazoned with the Konohagakure symbol on its handle. She hardly needed it, but that blade had been with her since the beginning. That blade had saved Hinata's life.

"Yes, nee-chan. We have to save them."

The following weeks brought much more of the same; Hinata would clean Sakura's bindings, Sakura would deal with the chickens, and her father remained peacefully ignorant of the girls' nightly duties. Sakura was compelled to protect him from the realities of her life; one foot on this farm and one on the battlefield. Her father was a good man, a kind man. So far, their little farm had remained out of the way of the fray. They didn't have much, but what they had could sustain them, as well as provide a little extra to be sold in the market a few hours down the road from their farm.

That's where Sakura realized her father could not handle the truths of this world. Three hours slumping through the humidity with fare from their farm to be sold, and he had given nearly all of it away. Beggars and urchins and anyone who held a hand out were given something to take away.

"This land is war-torn, Sacchan," he'd said, taking notice of her displeasure. "We're very lucky." She hadn't felt very lucky, with her itchy socks, and tattered clothes. At the time, it had just been she and her father, alone on their farm, and Sakura's skinny body had been worked to the bone each and every day. Still, despite all their hard work, her father was happy to give away whatever small extras they reaped.

"Soft socks won't be any warmer," he'd told her. "New clothes will tear and fray, just the same. Whether you eat the sweetest cake, or the driest bread, your stomach will be full, and that is all that concerns me," he'd said with a warm smile that momentarily had her forgetting how itchy the soles of her feet were in her boots.

"But it would be nicer," she'd rebutted, her lip curling in distaste as her father handed a bunch of turnips off to a pair of children caked in dirt. They had been his best turnips.

"Your soft socks won't last as long as a child's life, Sacchan," he'd muttered softly, and even then, when she'd been so young, she understood the wistfulness in his eye and what it meant. He was thinking about her; Sakura's mother. She'd never mentioned the socks again, even when she saw one of the recipients of his kindness turning a profit with his handouts. Even then, she thought his kind nature ought to be protected.

Her father had never waned from those beliefs, and she was grateful for that. It was that kindness, that selflessness that raised her to be strong enough to plunge her hand into the chest of a dying man and squeeze until she felt his heart rupture and his life stutter to an end. She supposed she and her father were one in the same, in that respect; sacrificing personal comfort for the good of man.

Haruno Kizashi had been selfless enough to bring in an orphaned, ill-fated child and treat her as his own. He had never once treated Hinata as a burden, not that she was one. Most days, Hinata was a bigger help than Sakura around the farm, particularly within the cottage. He had hardly even questioned Sakura about where Hinata had come from. Once the raven curtain of her hair was swept back, and he laid eyes on the hole in her face, he had no desire to learn more.

Another way in which she thought her father was, perhaps, too good-natured for his own wellbeing. He was too trusting. Sakura and Hinata knew better of the Kiri nin that prowled the Land of Valleys in search for Konoha shinobi, lying in wait. The people in Valleys had always taken a neutral stance, and her father was no exception.

Her father believed they had no place choosing sides in a shinobi war. Valleys was a small border nation, nestled unhappily between two great powers. They had no hidden village, no military force, and no power. All they had was land, and farmers, and lots of space to hide. Neither Kiri, nor Konoha were good, and neither evil. Both believed they were in the right, and as long as she, Hinata and her father remained on their farm, and kept to themselves, they would be safe.

Sakura decided he was right in some respect, at least. She had no interest in choosing sides. She'd seen the bloodshed from both sides, and she knew better than to hold one evil over the other. Her father was wrong about one thing, though; the shinobi didn't decide to be Konoha or Kiri, the same way she hadn't decided to be a farmer's daughter. She could help them. She could keep them from enduring more pain than they had to.

He had always taught her to be responsible for others, even strangers. She couldn't imagine he would approve of her prowling through battle-scarred land every night, but the details always seemed to worry him, in any case. If she had simply told him she was saving people from suffering, she was sure he would approve.

It was that knowledge that kept her stepping into the mist every night after a battle; the knowledge that she was doing the right thing. Every bloodstained binding, every whispered farewell, every flight at the sight of approaching Kiri nin—she knew it was worth it. This was her duty to humanity.

She and Hinata had had a brutal night. There were many Konoha nin left half-mast on the battlefield, and each one of them needed their help. They had managed, thankfully. They always managed; ever since that night she had failed to save the boy with the red eye, she had been sure to be swifter. She knew Hinata would be in pain come morning, and for that she was sorry, but her sister never did complain.

"Sacchan," Hinata whispered, her voice barely audible. "Someone is following us." Sakura felt the hair on her neck rise. Neither of them was in any position to fight off a trained ninja that was alive enough to follow them, and clever enough to remain too distant to be detected were it not for Hinata's special eye. Even if they hadn't been worn out, neither of them was trained to fight someone at that level.

"What can we do?" Sakura whispered back. Hinata had shown her some basic ninjutsu, but it wouldn't be enough. Hinata's one eye trained on her, the veins in her delicate face popping, making her appear fiercer than porcelain ought to look. Her head shook slowly from side to side, and then Sakura could see her hands raised in front of her.

Two Hinatas ran beside her, one in front of the other, and Sakura quickly followed suit. A short while later, Hinata's curt nod told her their diversion had worked. Their pursuant followed their clones instead of them. For now, they were safe. Sakura did not feel very safe, though.

"Who would have followed us?" Sakura whispered as she unravelled the bindings from her arms, in the shelter of their little cottage.

"Could be Kiri mistaking us for Konoha," Hinata answered, her mouth turned down in a frown. Technically, Hinata was a shinobi of the Leaf. Sakura never asked her how she felt about ending the lives of people who would have been her comrades. Some days, Sakura found herself wondering what would have happened if Hinata had not been captured. Perhaps hers would have been a life Sakura would have had to end.

"Could be," Sakura said instead, putting the matter to rest for the night. It was later than usual, and her father would expect them up, bright and early, to commence their day before that stifling midday humidity fell upon them. "Goodnight, nee-chan," Sakura whispered as she crawled under her covers, her fingers still stained red.

"Goodnight, Sakura-chan," Hinata whispered before her soft footfalls notified Sakura of her exit.

Sakura didn't sleep that night. Her mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of being followed in the night, leading someone into the safety of their small farm, tucked away from the mayhem of war, untouched by violence. She could hardly sleep a wink when everything she'd ever known was at jeopardy. Her mind spun, and spun, and spun endlessly through different scenarios.

Perhaps they weren't tailed by shinobi. Or, if they had been, perhaps they weren't very clever. They had fallen for a simple jutsu, after all. Unless they hadn't fallen for it at all. She should have plunged her kunai into their heart, she thought. She had never killed anyone that wasn't already dying, but perhaps it would have been worth it, to protect their little haven. She wasn't so sure her father would agree with that.

Sakura wasn't sure when she had finally succumbed to sleep. All she knew was that the sun was peeking in through her window before long, and for once, she was up and dressed before her father had to bellow her name. She frowned as she looked out her little window. The sun was too high. Why hadn't he called her?

With her heart sinking low in her stomach, Sakura stepped out of her room, barefoot and still dressed in her nightclothes, to quickly patter through their cottage, a sickness building in her belly. She stopped short when she rounded the corner to the kitchen to see her father smiling jovially at one end of the table, and a strange man with eyes black as night across from him.

"Sacchan!" her father started as he took her in, in all her disheveled glory. "Get dressed and come join us for breakfast. Bring Hinata-chan, please." She turned slowly to walk away, sparing one last fleeting glance to those black eyes, sparkling with something that made Sakura's blood run cold.

Hinata was still in her bedroom, waiting patiently for Sakura to go to her. She had been awake for some time; Sakura could tell by the prim and proper way she was dressed and groomed. She supposed all Hinata's time as a prisoner of war had not broken her habits. She was still a noble clan heiress, through and through.

"It's him, Sakura-chan," Hinata whispered the moment Sakura entered the room. "It's the man who was following us last night."

a/n: fuck those chickens fr

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