(A/N) Ino's second part today! And the next kit! Next up, Sakura. Sorry if Anko looks a bit ooc, but I really really didn't see Ibiki doing that...
Orange fireworks went off around the pink girl's head. Surprise, Ino quickly identified. Ino was offended, dark green flashing in her peripherals. Had no one told her that a large forehead could be a good thing?
The three other girls had full on angrily pacing animals around their heads. Ino dropped into the stance her father had been teaching her recently, glaring at the girls. "Go away!"
They hesitated for a moment, puffing up, then deflated quickly, running off a moment later.
Ino straightened up proudly, turning to the pink girl. "My name's Ino Yamanaka!"
"I-I'm Sakura Haruno," she said timidly, but smiling slightly. "T-thanks for that."
"No problem!" Ino chirped. "I don't like bullies! And I wasn't going to let them ruin my perfect day!"
Sakura blinked up at Ino through her bangs. "Huh?"
"The sun is shining, my dreams were really cool, and my head doesn't hurt!" Ino said, grinning. Yellow sunbursts exploded around her head, and tiny sakura blossoms were beginning to bloom around Sakura's head.
"O-oh, that's really good," Sakura agreed quietly. "D-do you really think my forehead is the perfect size for a ninja headband?"
"Of course!" Ino chirped, proud to see the sakura blossoms blooming further and bigger. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't! And you do wanna be a ninja, right?"
Sakura nodded timidly.
They played together for the remaining time, running around and pretending to be ninja. Eventually, Sakura's parents came to pick her up, and Ino was left sitting, waiting for her dad to pick her up.
With him taking altogether too long, she decided to look for him and stretched out her senses, looking for the familiar signature of her dad.
She found it, still at T&I. He must be working late for an interrogation or something. That was alright! She could walk home on her own, and wait for him at home!
So she started walking, taking familiar paths back to her home. Throughout she continued keeping a tab on her dad's signature, hoping to see when he was coming home.
The only warning she got was her dad's signature flaring abruptly, then the others around him doing the same thing, before her dad's signature went dark, disappearing.
Ino stopped in the middle of the street, clutching the keys her dad had handed her that morning.
She knew what death felt like, had seen it on her father when he came home after particularly bloody days, or missions. She hadn't felt it long distance before. It was a void, a blackness filled with nothing, not even the darkness of fear and sadness.
She barely registered the thump of her knees on the pavement, and the scraping of the skin from those knees as she fell, curling up on the road.
Her dad was dead, his signature didn't reappear, and sadness and anger entered into the signatures around where his had been. The signature she assumed was the culprit had disappeared as well, signaling his death.
Oh, she couldn't breathe. Breathing was kind of important. Her brain was unnaturally calm, a product of training with her father, her dead father, but her body panicked, unknowing what to do with this information.
"Ino," Anko, a colleague of her dad she had met exactly once. "Ino, hey, calm down, breath with me, alright?"
Ino focused on the steady heartbeat of Anko when she was picked up and carefully cradled against the woman. She focused on her signature as well, tinted with the death of her dad, tinted red with anger, but mostly dark blue with sadness.
She calmed down quickly, tuning out everything else, closing her eyes so as not to see the emotions and thoughts of those surrounding her. She felt Anko moving, jumping to the rooftops.
"Let's get you home snakelet," Anko said, for once subdued and quiet. "I'm sure you're tired from a day of playing."
Ino hummed tiredly, not willing to verbalize.
"We'll find you some leftovers for tonight, then move you into the orphanage tomorrow, alright?"
Ino nodded slightly, still listening to the steady thump thump of Anko's heartbeat.
(A/N) Uh, I'm sorry? Like in last chapter, this is just a middling point. Sakura's after this.
Sakura missed Ino, she'd only seen her once, during that day at the park, but Ino hadn't come back. Sakura worried, but what could she do? She was a 3 year old, and one born to civilians at that.
She didn't have much time to fret however, as they were going to leave for a three week trading trip to the nearby villages, and she had to be ready.
"Are you all packed, Sakura?" Her mother asked, loading the final bag into the wagon they were using, and feeding a carrot to the horse.
"Yep!" Sakura chirped, walking over to pet the horse. Her mother held her up to let her pet the nose of the horse, which was a beautiful chestnut color.
After petting the horse, Sakura was set inside the wagon, and she settled in, knowing she'd be in there for a long time. Her parents would walk beside the wagon along with their genin escort, and she'd ride in the wagon with all the stuff.
The first two weeks went by slowly, Sakura didn't know anyone in the villages, and couldn't really help with the trading, plus the genin and jounin-sensei were too busy guarding them to talk with her, so she mostly read. Luckily she had brought lots of books to read.
The final week was mostly just travel, although it was through somewhat dangerous territory.
Sakura was reading in the wagon, a cool book about the various plants that could be found in the area, when it rocked suddenly, then came to a halt. She looked up, putting her book to the side and scooting across to look out the side of the wagon.
She pulled the curtain that covered the window aside slightly, peeking out. It was a bloodbath, the dead bodies of bandits everywhere, the body of one of the genin, and blood everywhere.
Nothing was moving, so Sakura took that to mean the fight was over. She went to check the other side just in case.
She almost threw up instead, quickly closing the curtain to that side again and sitting back down, hiding her head in her knees. Her parents were two of the bodies there. The others were also lying in pools of their own blood, while the jounin finished off the remaining bandits, protecting her remaining two genin, who were both injured.
A few minutes later, the jounin opened the wagon door, blocking any view of the bloodbath from Sakura. "Are you alright?"
Sakura nodded weakly, not lifting her head from her legs.
"We'll be back at Konoha within two days, we'll continue on as soon as we bury the bandits and seal up the bodies of your parents," the jounin spoke quietly and calmly, clearly having assumed Sakura had looked out the window. "If you need to throw up, bang on the wagon door please."
Sakura nodded again, unwilling to look at anything but the darkness of her own eyelids. Soon enough she succumbed to sleep, curling up on the floor of the wagon as it rocked softly back and forth.
When she woke up there was a simple meal of bread and some jerky waiting for her. Either they stopped while she was asleep, or simply weren't stopping in favor of getting out of the area.
She ate, having little else to do, even if she wasn't all that hungry. Her parents were gone, but she couldn't just give up, she'd be a ninja, and she'd make sure that no one else would have to lose their parents to bandits! She'd help kill all of them!
Happy with that proclamation, Sakura settled down again, falling asleep after a few minutes.
(A/N) ... I'll give you pure fluff next chapter to make up for this and the Torune cliffhanger? Please don't kill me.
