[[A/N: Hello again and welcome back! Thank you for continuing to read! I'm glad my story has got your attention enough to read onwards (: There are no word limits to my chapters, I just write them to a point I think they naturally stop at, so some will be short and some will be longer. I have a planned ending to the story but I don't know how many chapters it will take to finish it.
Also, in case anyone is curious, the art for the cover of the story is mine! It's a drawing of Hanako when she's older (about 18). It's unfinished at the moment but I plan on coloring it, and then I'll replace the cover image with the finished one when that time comes. Enjoy the chapter! Leave a review if you have anything to say!]]
"Hana-chan, get up!"
She sighed heavily at the voice, rolling over in her bed sheets. Maybe if she ignored them, it would go away and she could get a few more moments of blissful peace. Then again, she thought that every morning when someone else had to come wake her up, and it was never true.
"Hanaaa!"
She sighed again.
"Aoi-san said if you aren't up in the next ten minutes, you don't get breakfast!" Her eyes opened slowly, blinking in the dull light of the room. It wasn't too bright, the sun had only come up just enough to fill the sky with a light blue, not yet golden rays. She waited for a moment, then heard the person on the other side of the door grumble before stomping away. As soon as they left, she sat up in her bed and yawned.
She stretched her hands far above her head, leaning forward to arch her back like a cat. Afterwards, she stood up and obediently cleaned her face, hands, and neck with a washcloth before getting dressed for the day. She had a lot of chores ahead of her, and even though she played the same game every morning where she refused to get up until the person on the other side of the door left, she always got up just in time for breakfast anyway.
Well, almost always. There was one time where she accidentally fell asleep again, waiting for her newest waker-upper to leave, and she'd gotten an earful from the cook, a haggard older lady named Aoi, who really did refuse to feed her breakfast.
With a smile on her face as she slid open the screen door to her bedroom, she remembered how her brother had saved her a snack just for that reason.
She speed-walked quickly to the yard. Despite the threat of not getting breakfast if she hadn't gotten up soon, the meal itself wouldn't be served until after 'sunrise chores' had been finished. Namely, she had to sweep away the stray leaves on the patio outside, help pick weeds in the small garden off to the side of the campgrounds, then she, in a cruel twist of irony, had to help wake up the smaller children for breakfast.
She did her duties diligently, as she always did. It was a monotonous kind of repetition, doing the same chores every morning, every afternoon, and every night. But, she reminded herself, that repetition meant safety. Repetition meant nothing was disturbed, nothing new was happening - for new was scary, and bound to bring troubles.
As she dusted off the dirt from her hands, ready to head inside to wake up the other children so they could all eat breakfast together, she let her mind wander.
The Ueno Clan - and it was a Clan, despite its recent downfall and dwindling numbers - had been big, once. Big and important. Years ago, many years before she had been born, her father had led the Clan into battle against various enemies countless times. They battled other Clans, mostly, but sometimes her mother liked to tell her stories that she was sure were fake, like how he had taken down a whole army of demons on his own. Or how he once challenged a fierce monstrosity into an eating contest to leave a nearby village in peace, only to trick it by slipping poison into its drink. She enjoyed the stories, giggling the night away by her mother's side, but as she grew older, she came to realize that, really… All they ever fought were other people.
Over stupid things, she thought. Land. Resources. Honor. Titles. Whole wars could break out if someone didn't refer to a Clan head with the right honorifics. She hated it all, and once - only once - during dinner, she had told her father that it was stupid how everyone fought each other instead of sharing what they had. She brought up how everyone had shared their own things, water and food and medicine, when their house had burned down all those years ago. Her mother had gone quiet, eyes downcast at her meal, silent even as her hands shook. Her brother had looked at her with wide brown eyes, shocked.
Her father had slapped her so hard she knocked her head on the ground when she fell, then he'd gotten up and stormed away.
Kouji had knelt by her side to pick her up, and her mother scolded her for a full two hours to never speak so disrespectfully to her father again. Her hands shook the whole time she checked over Hanako's head for injuries. There had been none - just a large bruise on her cheek that she hid easily enough with her long, silver hair.
"Where are you?"
Hanako nearly jumped out of her skin, resting a hand on the wall of the hallway she had been walking through, looking to the side to see a familiar face staring at her.
"Just now," Kouji said with curious eyes. He was wearing his armor, she noted with a dull frown. He smiled at her. "Did you get lost in your thoughts again, Hana-chan?"
Hanako paused to take a deep breath in, calming her nerves, before she leveled a pout at him and shook her head. If her older brother had ever minded her quietness, how she barely spoke around others, he had never given any indication to it. She was thankful to him for it.
"Really?" He grinned, sidling up to her to gently knock on her head with his knuckles. "You looked like you were a whole mile away! I thought I'd have to go in there to get you back!"
She swatted him away with a small smile. She didn't want to encourage his teasing, but she couldn't help giggling softly when he was smiling. It happened rarely these days, when he went out time after time to fight for something - something stupid - in the name of the Ueno clan, coming back after days or weeks of absence with a dark look in his eyes and armor covered in blood.
Armor.
She stopped her giggling all at once, her smile dropping. She looked at him again, and frowned at the armor he wore. She tugged on one of his metal shoulder guards, looking at him with wide, pleading eyes.
He seemed to understand what she meant, and his teasing grin turned to a pained smile.
"I have to go soon, Hana-chan. I came by to see you before I left."
It was something he always did, giving a new excuse every time he was asked about it. Never once had he left without seeing her off, even if he had to wake her in the middle of the night for an emergency mission that he'd had no time to prepare for.
So he wouldn't die without saying goodbye, her thoughts turned dark. He never said it out loud, but she was sure that was the reason.
He noticed it right away, of course. Shinobi always noticed things that Hanako had never been able to spot. He gave a gentle pat to the top of her head, then tucked a loose tuft of silver hair behind her ear.
"I'll come back soon, Hana-chan. I have two adorable little sisters to return to, after all!"
With that, he left. Disappeared in the blink of an eye. Another 'thing that Shinobi do', she knew and was used to by now. As she mulled over his words, she remembered with a start - her sister! She had to go wake the younger children for breakfast!
She rushed quietly through the compound, knowing by now which floorboards creaked and which ones were silent. Her brother had taught her after she was caught trying to sneak into the kitchens late one night for a glass of water; the lesson had mainly been the two of them goofing off the whole time until he'd reached the area just outside their parents' room. Then he'd shown her, quietly, with a serious expression, how to sneak around it without a sound.
"Never," he'd said solemnly, "wake up Father."
She shook the thoughts from her head, reaching a room where a bunch of children and infants slept. She woke them up one by one, with gentle shakes and, if they didn't work, blowing air on their faces. They almost always woke to that one. When she reached the bed that her younger sister slept in, she climbed up onto the bed quietly.
"Sachiko, Sachiko," she whispered. Her voice was small and delicate, owing its weakness to how infrequently she ever used it. She shook her sister's shoulder gently. Blearily, the younger girl's big brown eyes blinked up at her. Hanako smiled. "Food."
Her little sister sat up, but instead of getting out of bed like the others had, she leaned forward and crawled into Hanako's lap. The older girl smiled, picking her up to carry her.
She was very small and somewhat light, only being four years old. Hanako had never minded carrying her sister to places she wanted to go, and neither had Kouji. She'd been born 'wrong', her brother once told her after the little girl first came into this world (and boy, how their mother had angered at that, at calling Sachiko wrong). Four years ago, their family home, the Ueno Clan compound, had been burned to the ground, caught in a conflict between two different Clans - Uchiha, her mind whispered - and while the Clan Head's wife, Yuna, hadn't sustained any injuries during her escape, she had breathed in enough smoke and ash that many thought the birth wouldn't go well at all. So many complications arose as they travelled to a new home to settle into, so many Clansmen worried of how both mother and child were at risk of not surviving the laborious task of birth. Hanako's mother had bared it all with a smile.
Despite all odds, both survived.
Sachiko's heart beat too fast, and her lungs were very weak. She couldn't play with the other children because she tired out too quickly, and sometimes she got excited enough that her heart would beat too fast and she'd pass out, and someone had to summon a healer. She was doted on by all the adults, and children would feel bad about leaving her out of their games so they often brought back anything they found in the dirt that they thought was interesting. Little Sachiko had a collection of rocks she thought was pretty, gifts given to her by the other kids, and Hanako was happy to help her collection grow anytime she went out to the river to fetch water.
(There was a well on the grounds, but it was contaminated and nobody was allowed to drink from it. Kouji had had the good sense to cut the rope that carried the bucket up and down long ago so no forgetful children could drink the filthy water when they were thirsty from playing.)
She delivered a sleepy Sachiko to the breakfast area, and the cook scooped her up with a smile, immediately poking at the girl's nose and telling her how pretty she was and what a good little girl she was for getting up on time.
Hanako pretended not to notice the stink eye sent her way at that, sitting down to eat breakfast. For a little while, they all ate in relative silence.
"Hanako-sama," Aoi called her when she was nearly done with her food. Hanako looked up with a mouthful of fish. Being the Clan Head's daughter, most others outside of her immediate blood family dutifully referred to her with the proper honorific that the title brought her.
"Yes, Aoi-san?" She responded in a meek voice after swallowing. She would have preferred to not speak at all, but she knew from experience that the grouchy old cook would not speak again until she showed her the 'respect she deserved as an Ueno elder'. Her words, of course.
"Will you go out and fetch some water after you're finished? The stores are running low. The buckets are by the door already."
With that, Aoi left to go fuss over Sachiko's messy eating. Hanako felt a twinge of annoyance, both at the fact that she didn't ask her to fetch water so much as she commanded her to fetch water, and at the fact that she'd already put the buckets by the door because she knew the young girl wouldn't say no. Despite this, she finished her meal in a few more bites and put her dishes by the stack that some other girls would wash, then went out to dutifully do her tasks.
She was only eight years old, so she'd found it curious how she was trusted to do certain tasks on her own. Her doing work despite being the Clan Head's daughter was of no surprise on its own; due to how few Ueno there were left in the Clan, many women and children worked and Hanako wanted to be useful to them. The river nearby was familiar to her, she'd gone down there several times in the last few months that they'd been in this new location, but it was a fair distance away. Often when she was tasked with bringing buckets of water back, she had to take breaks to set down the heavy metal and rest her legs for a few moments.
She never told others that it was a taxing task, though. She wanted to be useful, and she hated the idea of declining to help because she didn't enjoy the chore. Everyone did work they didn't enjoy. She had to do her part, for her family and her Clan.
She swung the buckets as she walked through the foliage of the forest. There was a path beaten into the ground that helped her get to and from her destination. It didn't go directly to the river itself, however - she had no idea where the other side of the path went to, only that when she reached the tree with a red ribbon tied on one of the upper branches, it was time to veer off to the left. She headed straight, and eventually the grassy forest turned into hard rocks and gravel as she neared the rushing river.
She stepped just close enough so that the bottoms of her feet were in the water, then leaned down and submerged the bucket to fill it as much as she could, then set it on the gravel beside her. The water was freezing despite it being spring, but she bore it in silence. She lifted the other bucket, submerging it all the same.
"-ou! You can't hide from me-!"
She froze.
Fear struck every part of her nerves, her body felt like it had been submerged in ice at the sudden coldness that shocked through her body. She didn't move, even when her bucket filled and was almost carried away by the rushing currents of the water below her. Her mind went into overdrive, and she began thinking of all the worst possibilities.
What was that voice? Who did it belong to? Kouji? No, that's not his voice. A Shinobi? An enemy? Are they going to kill me? I should never have come out here, I should have said no to Aoi-san. I'm going to die here, I'll never see Sachiko or Kouji or Mother again-
Her breathing quickened and she felt tears prick her eyes. She was hyperventilating, and her legs felt sore from the amount of time she's been crouched over in the shallow end of the river.
Then she heard laughter, and the voice of a young boy - younger than Kouji - shout, "Hey! No fair!"
Inch by inch, she forced her head upwards. There were no Shinobi here, at least not anyone dressed like a Shinobi. There were just… two boys. Younger than Kouji, like she'd thought when hearing the voice for the second time. They were on the other side of the river bank, pushing each other into the dirt and laughing, seemingly wrestling with each other. Some of the children in the compound wrestled, so the sight was familiar to her.
Her heart was still beating wildly, but it calmed itself slowly as she took in deep breaths.
She finally stood up. Her fingers were freezing, having been submerged with the bucket in the icy river water the entire time she had been panicking, but she was sure the shaking was not from the cold. Her legs felt like they'd give out underneath her, and she forced herself to stay upright.
She'd felt this feeling before, the weakness she got after feeling intense fear. Once, she had gotten lost in a forest when she was playing tag with her brother, and she'd heard bushes rustling nearby. She cried and cried, thinking for sure it was an enemy who would pop out and grab her. Instead, it had only been a squirrel having trouble climbing up the tree.
Kouji had poked fun at her for a while after that.
She took in several deep breaths, steadying herself, then picked up the other bucket and began making her way slowly, quietly, back to the forest. She didn't know them - didn't want to know them - and her mother had always told her to be wary of strangers. She just wanted to go back home.
"Oh-! Hey!" She heard one voice call out, much louder than before. It had to have been directed to her. She turned around slowly, no longer shaking but still feeling like she might collapse with one wrong step.
As she thought, it was directed at her. The two boys were standing up now, dirt smudged on their outfits and faces, looking at her. One boy, the one who had called out to her judging from the way he was waving his hand wildly in the air, was wearing a dark kimono shirt beneath a short, light green jacket. He had pinstriped kimono pants tied with a sash around his waist. His hair was short, dark brown, and cut in a bowl style. He wore plain sandals.
The other boy stood a step behind, looking at her with wide, dark eyes. He wore a dark blue, short yukata that went to his knees, with a light blue sash wrapped around the middle. He wore plain white paints beneath it. His hair was dark and spiky looking, down to his chin. Like the first, he also wore plain sandals.
Why was he staring at her with wide eyes? Was he just as surprised to see her as she was to see them two here?
"Hey!" The boy with the bowl-cut shouted again, a grin on his face. He cupped his hands around his mouth to make his voice louder. "We're skipping rocks on the water, wanna join? I can teach you how!"
The boy with dark hair said something quietly to the bowl-cut boy, and bowl-cut boy responded with something just as quiet and a teasing look on his face. Dark hair boy whacks his arm with an angry expression.
Hanako didn't know what was going on between them - were they fighting? Or were they just playing, like how Kouji would tease her sometimes? She didn't want to find out. She just wanted to go home and convince Aoi that somebody bigger than her should start collecting water from now on. She turned around, but she couldn't take a single step before the same boy shouted again.
"Wait, wait!" She paused and, against her desire to go home, turned around again to look at him. It would be disrespectful to just walk away while they were talking to her, right? She would wait until they were done talking, then she'd leave. "I can really teach you how to skip stones! I'm good at it, watch!"
Bowl-cut boy picked up a rock from his side of the river, leaned back on his right leg, then tossed the stone at an angle. It skipped once, twice, three times against the top of the surface before it sunk to the bottom. It'd made it maybe two-thirds of the way through, not reaching her at all. All three children were silent for a moment, then the bowl-cut boy sat down and hugged his knees to his chest, wailing about how ashamed he was to have messed up his throw in front of a girl.
"Stop being so depressed, you're embarrassing me!" Dark-haired boy pointed and shouted at the quietly sulking boy.
Both of them stopped their fake arguing when they heard quiet giggling. They looked over at the girl and found her laughing at their antics. The boy with dark hair blushed and the boy with the bowl-cut grinned widely at having made her laugh.
Neither of them said a thing, though, as the girl set her buckets down, picked up a handful of stones from the river bank, and flawlessly skipped them all to the other side at the side time. Both boys stared in awe, not even attempting to conceal their amazement. The girl, so small and frail looking, picked up both buckets again and turned around to leave. She paused, then called over her shoulder,
"It was nice meeting you!" Because it would have been rude to not say that, wouldn't it?
Both boys stared at where she disappeared from. After a moment in stunned silence, they finally speak up again. "I gotta learn that," the boy with the bowl-cut said quietly.
"I'll learn it first," said the boy with dark hair. His competitive streak came out easily.
The challenge was on immediately.
