"As in the case of wines that improve with age, the oldest friendships ought to be the most delightful."
CHAPTER ONE
Saruna stared absently at the window, watching the raindrops take erratic paths down the glass. She felt her mind start to drift to daydreams, and the leaden weight of her eyelids overpowered her strength to keep them open. Her head bobbed slightly off her fist underneath it, and landed flat on her desk with a loud bang. She jolted upright, her pale skin turning a fiery red as the instructor remarked, "falling asleep on the first day?" She slunk down in her seat at the stifled giggles coming from the thirty other six year olds behind her. The silver-haired boy sitting directly to her left audibly scoffed and rolled his eyes. She turned to him and stuck her tongue out as far as she could before crossing her arms and turning back towards the front of the classroom. The instructor had drawn a crude representation of the human body with lines of blue chalk coursing through it and joining together at different points throughout. "Can anyone tell me what these lines represent?" he asked. No one raised their hand. No one except for the eye-roller sitting next to her. He wore a mask that covered most of his face so that you couldn't tell at all what he was thinking, and Saruna wondered if that was the point of it. "Chakra," he replied without hesitation or elaboration. "That's correct, excellent work Kakashi" he replied, and continued to lecture. Saruna heard almost none of the following lesson, as she was too busy making a mental note of the boy's name and scheming on how she'd get back at him later. When it was finally the end of the day, Saruna got up to leave and heard three girls in the row behind her whispering to each other quietly. She packed up her bag slowly, pretending not to eavesdrop. "Kakashi is so amazing," one of them squealed. Another dreamily said, "did you know his dad is a super strong and famous ninja? I bet he's going to be just like him." Saruna rolled her eyes externally, but internally wondered if Kakashi suffered under the weight of having to live up to his name as much as she did.
She left the Ninja Academy that afternoon with a heavy mind. She had been so excited for her first day and to start living her dream of becoming a shinobi, yet the only thing she'd managed to do was fall asleep and get laughed at. "Guess I'll have to train even harder now," she lamented to herself as she kicked rocks along the dirt as she walked. She looked up at the stone Hokage monument and admired its protective gaze over the village. She studied the face of the first Hokage most closely, just like she did every day. It both motivated her and scared her at the same time; someday, she hoped, she would make her great-grandfather proud.
Saruna walked home slowly, but not so slowly that her mother would wonder where she was. As she was rounding the corner that led to her area village, she saw a tuft of silver hair walking alone about 20 yards ahead of her. For some reason, after looking up at the stone faces of the Hokage and reflecting on her less than stellar performance that day, she felt the need to prove herself to this boy who had mocked her so freely. "Hey!" she yelled as her stride picked up into a run until she was shoulder to shoulder with him. He looked at her out of the corner of his slate eyes, but didn't bother to face her as he continued walking. "I know you think you're better than me, but I'm the great-granddaughter of the first Hokage, Saruna Senju. One day, I'm going to be stronger than he was and stronger than you too," she said defiantly with fists clenched at her sides. Kakashi finally turned to look at her, thoughtfully. He closed his eyes and shrugged so nonchalantly that it irritated her, simply replying, "I know who you are." He turned and walked down a nearby driveway to his house, disappearing behind the front door before Saruna could say anything in retort.
Kakashi got inside and dropped his things down on the table. He thought back to his walk to the academy earlier that morning with his father when (unbeknownst to her) he had first encountered Saruna. In the crowd of new students and their parents, Saruna was walking a little bit ahead of him. He noticed her right away because she was such a scrawny little kid, with dirty knees and a missing front tooth. She walked beside a tall and graceful woman with bright red hair and green eyes who he assumed was her mother even though she clashed so harshly with Saruna's gruffness, dark auburn hair and honey-colored eyes. A smaller boy without any parents was off to the side of the walkway with three bigger boys that were probably second year students surrounding him. Two of them hurled insults at him, making the boy cry despite his best effort not to. One pushed him in the chest, knocking him down. "Shinobi don't cry," they laughed as they kicked him while he was down on the ground. The little boy simply covered his head and waited for it to be over. Kakashi watched silently, pitying him but also judging him for his weakness. He wondered if he should do something; he knew he could easily take the three older boys down. Before he'd even finished the thought, Saruna jumped out from the crowd and stood between the boy on the ground and the others, her mother chasing and yelling after her. She stared, unwavering, at the three boys twice her size in front of her. "Leave him alone," she warned. The boys laughed in response. "What are you going to do about it? You're just a girl, and you're even smaller than he is," one said, with his friends nodding in support. Their laughter quickly stopped when Saruna kicked the leader as hard as she could in the knee, bringing him down onto his back where he held his right knee and whimpered in pain. "Clumsy, but fast," Kakashi thought to himself. She stepped on the bully's chest with her foot and bent over to look him square in the eyes, only inches from his face. The boy scrambled to his feet, and all three of them ran the other way. Saruna's mother finally caught up to the scene, palm to her forehead as though this was not unusual behavior for Saruna. Saruna helped the younger boy up. "They're right you know, you shouldn't cry like that. Next time, you have to fight back, okay?" The boy nodded, wiping away his tears, and walked the rest of the way to the front entrance with Saruna and her mother. When they reached the gate, Kakashi felt his father put his hand on his head, like he always did. "Watch out for that one," he said smiling, gesturing towards Saruna and her now even dirtier knees.
