[[A/N: Hello and welcome! Thank you for clicking and taking an interest, it means a lot to me! As the summary says, this is taking place during the Warring States Period, when Hashirama and Madara are children. My character does change how the story goes because of her involvement in the world, so it's an AU story technically! I hope you enjoy the story, please leave a review if you have anything at all to say! Enjoy the read!]]


A wide field stretched ahead of her, bright green grass damp and healthy from the recent light rainfall. The field was scattered with wild flowers of varying colors and sizes, different types that she was learning to recognize and put a name to. Her mother liked to garden and press flowers in her free time, you see, and she was teaching her daughter to do the same. On a regular day, with the sun shining the way it was now, illuminating the field in warm streams of light and feeding the plant life, she could name almost every one of them with little to no mistakes in pronunciation. They were mostly wildflowers and were seen quite frequently around the area, but still. She could name many of them, and on a regular day, she was proud of that.

On a regular day.

Today, she could hardly see them through her tears. Someone was holding her hand - no, not holding it, gripping it so, so tightly - and running quickly towards the field of wildflowers. She wanted to tell them that it hurt, that they were pinching her skin beneath their nails, that they were moving too quick and she would fall and scrape her knees if they didn't slow down, that she would run off and tattle to her mother if they didn't stop being so rough with her.

Mother. Her thoughts scattered. Where is mother?

Slowly, her senses returned to her.

First, her hearing. The screaming of panicked and injured people around her filled her ears, but they were drowned out by the crackle of flames all around her, and the burning of her lungs ached in her chest. Her hand, the one not being pulled by this stranger being just-too-rough with her, came up to tug at the fabric of her plain, cheaply made yukata. It was loose on her, like it'd been put on in a hurry, but she still clawed at it, thinking it must have been the reason she felt like she was choking. Tight, it must be too tight. Suffocating.

Then, her smell. Burning wood crackled behind her, and when she took in a needy gasp of air, the only thing greeting her lungs was smoke. Fire, she thought, confused. There's a fire. Where's mother? She smelled the burning wood, the sickly sweet smell of flowers burning on the wind, the almost-familiar scent of meat that had been left to cook for too long and was burnt to a charcoal. Then, she tasted it. Tasted the ash on her tongue, the blood in her mouth. She took in another breath of air, coming in as a choked gasp, and she coughed so hard her frame shook.

"Don't breathe it in, Hana-chan! Hold your breath, we're almost to the fields!" A desperate, shaky voice of a young boy called in front of her. She looked up at the person pulling her along, finally, and she saw the familiar face of her older brother staring down at her. His eyes were wet with unshed tears, but none of them fell.

Strong, even now. Just as father taught him to be.

"Where-" she tried to ask a question in her croaky, broken voice, but she coughed again. She coughed and coughed and coughed until she thought her lungs would just come right up through her throat. Her brother, only four years older than her, turned to look at her again with panic in his eyes. He didn't know what to do, and was scared to lose anyone. He stopped abruptly, bending down on his knees.

"Get on, Hana-chan! Hurry! I'll carry you out of here!" He coughed a few times in between words, but it was nowhere near as bad as her own attempts at speaking. She obeyed while holding her breath, wrapping her small arms around his neck as he grabbed her legs, stood, and leapt.

She'd seen him do amazing tricks before - her mother had once gently explained it to her as 'just something that a Shinobi does' - and while she didn't fully understand it, she was taught to just not question it. He soared through the air for a moment, touched down onto the ground gently, then leapt once more. The second leap brought them out of the hazy ash surrounding their home and into the clear air of the field of wildflowers, where she looked around and noticed there were several other people as well. They all sat crying, cradling injuries and weeping over still bodies. The smell of burnt meat was strong.

Her brother let her down, breathing heavily, and she had another coughing fit. A hand slapped her on the back harshly, and she fell over into the grass. Snot and tears fell from her face freely. Her eyes stung from the smoke, her lungs ached from breathing in ash, and her whole body was sore from running so hard at the beginning. She sobbed loudly, scared and confused and in pain.

"Okaa-chan! Okaa-chan!" She cried into the air loudly, blindly reaching out for her mother to cradle her in her arms. She got up onto her hands and knees and looked around for her brother, looking for comfort from anyone who would bring it to her, only to find that he was gone as well.

Back into the fight, she remembered her father once saying in his stern, cold voice. That's what Shinobi do. They get hurt, and they get up and get back into the fight.

She didn't want him back in the fight, though. She clutched damp grass between her fingers, pulling up dirt and wildflowers. "Kouji-nii!" She cried out into the air again. She felt so alone, despite being surrounded by others who were in the same situation as her, had suffered the same atrocity as she had. "Come back, Kouji-nii! Please!"

Hands enveloped her, and she wrapped her own small, thin arms around them in turn. She didn't know who it was, but she wanted comfort from someone, anyone - anyone who could tell her that it would be alright.

She wept until she had nothing left to shed, and her head had gone so light and dizzy from crying so hard. The stranger didn't let go of her once, and there, in a stranger's bandage-wrapped arms smelling of burn salve, she fell unconscious.


Uchiha.

The name was thrown around more than once. At first, in quiet whispers. The people who'd lost their homes to the fires were afraid that if they spoke it too loudly, it would summon them back, like demons. They muttered together angrily, bitter frowns on their lips and hard lines around their eyes.

Uchiha.

As they counted the bodies, wrapped burn victims in salve and bandages, and shared what little food and water that had been saved from the flames, their anger grew. With their growing anger, so did their voices.

They began spitting on the name, cursing it loudly into the sky.

"Damn you, Uchiha bastards!"

"Monsters, the lot of you! Uchiha filth!"

"Don't ever show your faces again, Uchiha devils, if you know what's good for you!"

That last one was just a brave face, everyone knew. If they really did return, those Shinobi with dark hair and blood red eyes who had set their home aflame, every single one of them would likely shrink away in fear. They all knew this, and yet, as the angry young men shouted those words, there were rallying cries to boost it up higher. As if maybe, just maybe, if enough people believed in them, they could really stand a chance.


"Hanako…." A gentle voice spoke so, so far away. It sounded like it was on the other side of a tunnel, and just briefly, she thought of the time her older brother had whisked her away on an adventure away from their home.

He'd taken her somewhere not too far, knocked his knuckles on a stone wall, and lifted a fake door covered in leaves. She had looked through the hole with wide eyes, and her brother had laughed, encouraging her to crawl through the tunnel and go to the other side. She'd taken a step back and shook her head mutely, afraid. He looked at her quietly for a moment, then smiled - gave her a pat on the head, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear - and crawled through by himself.

She had watched him in fear the entire time, numerous thoughts running through her head. What if the little tunnel collapsed? What if he was too big to fit through it and he got stuck? Would she have to go in to save him? What if she went in to save him and she got stuck too? Would they be stuck there and grow old in that little tunnel forever?

He'd made it through to the other side with no complications, however. He had turned back to look at her through the tunnel when he was cleared, and smiled and called out to her. It echoed loudly, and she had clamped her hands over her ears with a smile.

"Hanako!"

It didn't echo this time. She opened her eyes quickly, looking at the person standing over her, shouting her name, with tears in her eyes. What? What had she done to deserve being yelled at?

Her older brother, Kouji, stood over her with his hands on her shoulders. He'd been shaking her as well as shouting her name, trying to get her to wake up. The moment he saw the tears in her eyes, he reeled back with guilt. He stammered out an apology.

"Ah- I'm sorry, Hana-chan! Don't cry! I didn't mean to shout at you!" He leaned forward and scooped her up in his arms. She hugged back without delay, sniffling a bit. When she looked over his shoulders to look around, she found she was in an unfamiliar place. It looked like a spare room in a regular house, but the walls were filthy and there were no lights. It was dark. "I just… got so scared. Mother said to let you sleep because you were healing, but when you didn't wake up for three whole days I was so scared you would die!"

He sniffled, and she thought he might be crying, but when she pulled away she saw his tears were unshed. Locked tightly behind his eyes. He smiled down at her with a look of equal sadness and relief in his wet eyes. Then, she blinked.

"Okaa-chan's here? She's okay?" She spoke quietly. Kouji nodded at her..

"She's okay. She breathed in a lotta smoke, but the healer said that her and the baby are okay for now."

The baby. Her mother was due any day, already well into the ninth month of pregnancy. She hadn't even remembered that, when she was in the field crying for her mother. She'd just wanted her to show up, magically, and whisk her away to a happier place. Was that selfish? She didn't know.

"I'm glad you're okay, Hana-chan…" Kouji said in the silence of the room. She looked up at him, her hands clasped in her lap.

He looked okay, she said in her mind. There were smudges of dirt on his fair skin, and so much soot and ash in his hair that the silver locks had nearly turned black; His brown eyes were overcast with a darkness that hadn't been there just a week ago. He looked filthy, and their mother would surely chide him for not presenting himself well in front of others, but he looked safe and alive.

Tears pricked at her eyes in relief and a culmination of other emotions that she was too frazzled to name, and unlike her strong elder Shinobi brother who never cried at all, they fell freely. Her father sometimes told her that she was too emotional, that she cried too much, but her mother had always sidled up behind her after he left and whispered that crying was good because it let out all the emotions that you couldn't handle on the inside. She always waited until he left to say it, though.

Hanako Ueno cried and embraced her brother.