"Um…"
Tsunami turns to the ninja girl, who is standing behind her looking as if she is deciding whether or not to run away. The little girl is shy, Tsunami realizes. "Yes, Sasuke?" Tsunami asks more gently than she would have before.
"Um…" Sasuke takes a deep breath and blurts out; "Can you cut my hair for me?"
Tsunami is surprised by this request. "Why do you want to cut your hair?" she asks. "It so beautiful."
"It keeps getting in the way!" Sasuke sounds a little distressed and a tiny bit angry. "Please cut it for me?"
"Alright," agrees Tsunami, realizing it took a lot of courage for Sasuke to ask for her help. "Go sit on that chair while I get my scissors." Sasuke does so, and soon Tsunami is snipping away at her hair. Tsunami notices that Sasuke's hair has a tendency to stick out at the back, so she is careful to cut it so it will sit flat.
When Tsunami is finished, Sasuke has a short hime cut, which reaches to about four centimeters above her shoulders. Sasuke puts her headband back on so that short part of her fringe covers the metal plate, and the longer pieces hang down on either side of the headband.
"How will people know what village you're from if you cover your Leaf symbol?" asks Tsunami.
"They will know by the Uchiha crest on my dress," says Sasuke.
"OI SASUKE!" Naruto barges in, followed by that bird of his. "I got higher up my tree than you...WHERE DID YOUR HAIR GO!?"
"You're an idiot!" snaps Sasuke, and runs off. Tsunami wonders if Sasuke has a little 12 year old crush on Naruto, then immediately dismisses the idea. Sasuke does not seem interested in boys at all.
"Where did Sasuke's hair go?" asks Naruto, confused.
Sasuke storms off to the training ground her team created for themselves. When she arrives, she glares up at Naruto's tree in anger. He did get higher than her, the little s##t! Angrily, Sasuke runs at her tree, slashing at it as she climbs. Unfortunately she is too angry to focus properly and soon falls down to the ground.
Rather than catch herself, Sasuke simply falls, landing in the grass at the base of her tree. The top seems so far away. Just like all her goals. She wants to be stronger than Itachi, but most of the time it feels like that will never happen. She doesn't have sharingan. She probably won't awaken it either. The clan won't be too disappointed, since she is a girl and all. No, they will be worse than disappointed - they will be kind.
Sasuke stares up at the sky, that far away, blue sky. All her life she has played second fiddle to her sister. Now she has a little brother too. He will get the sharingan and her Dad's attention because he is a boy and she is nothing special. At least Sasuke's Aunt and Uncle pay more attention to Eizo-Mori than Itachi does, so that's something. But Itachi gets Shisui's attention. All the time, and that is worse. Sasuke likes Shisui - a lot. But she is too young to attract his attention. No, he's only interested in Itachi. Just like the rest of the clan. The only attention Sasuke gets is when she gets grounded. So she gets grounded - at least that way she gets attention.
Sasuke hears footsteps, soft footsteps. Then a shadow falls across her and a feminine voice asks, "Are you alright? You fell from quite a way up."
Sasuke turns to see a black haired girl wearing a pink yukata and a black choker standing beside her. "I'm fine," says Sasuke shyly. The girl is very pretty, and she seems so nice.
The girl smiles, and Sasuke feels the last of her anger leave her. "I see you are a ninja of the Hidden Leaf," she says. "What made you decide to become a ninja?"
"I guess it's just because my whole clan expected it," says Sasuke, sighing.
"Then why do you fight?" asks the girl. "Do you want to be a ninja?"
"I don't know," admits Sasuke. "I don't know how to be anything else."
"Don't you have any dreams? Or anyone you want to protect?" asks the girl, and Sasuke gets the impression there is a reason she is asking these questions, a reason besides curiosity.
Sasuke stares up at the sky, that unreachable blue sky. "I want to be stronger than my sister, whether I get sharingan or not," she whispers. "I want to protect my village. I want to join the police force like my father. I want to be brave. I want to be remembered, not just another Uchiha without sharingan. My dreams are as unreachable as the sky." That is the most words Sasuke has said to anyone except Shino or Itachi.
After a moment the other girl says, "If they are your dreams, then you should do everything you can to achieve them, even if it means you are simply trying to pin down the sky."
Sasuke does not respond, and soon the girl leaves. After a long time laying in the grass and staring at the sky, Sasuke suddenly decides, "I am going to die my hair the colour of the sky!" she laughs. "I'll get grounded for it, probably, but I will achieve my dreams! And I will wear the sky!"
Kakashi is surprised when Sasuke returns from her training with a bottle of hair dye. "What are you planning on doing with that?" Kakashi asks, trying to see the colour label on the bottle.
"I am going to dye my hair," says Sasuke, looking down at her feet, then glaring at him defensively.
Kakashi marvels at how the little girl can go from shy to aggressive so quickly. Perhaps she is trying to cover up how shy she is by pretending to hate everything. "Will your parents approve of you dying your hair?" Kakashi asks.
"I don't care!" says Sasuke, a little too quickly, like she is trying to get the conversation over with.
Kakashi considers this for a moment and says, "You know what? I don't care either. You're not my kid."
Sasuke pulls a face and scoots off to dye her hair. When Tsunami calls everyone to dinner, Sasuke's hair is clipped up around her head with dark, wet gunk all through it. Kakashi wonders what colour Sasuke is dying her hair. It is hard to tell. The pungent fumes coming from Sasuke's hair do not stop her from devouring the food Tsunami sets in front of her.
Naruto sees how much and how fast Sasuke is eating and tries to match her chew for chew. Madoka finishes his helping and gets up to look at the torn picture on the wall. He completely ignores Naruto and Sasuke.
"Why is this picture torn?" Madoka asks, after examining the photograph for a minute. "I couldn't help noticing that Inari keeps looking at this picture. Who was there? Why was it torn?"
Kakashi wonders if Madoka will get an answer.
After a moment, Tsunami says, "It was a picture of Inari's father."
"Once," adds Tazuna, "Our entire land called him a hero."
Inari gets up and marches out of the kitchen.
"Inari, where are you going?" demands Tsunami. "INARI!"
Inari ignores her and keeps walking, slamming the door behind him.
Turns to her father and snaps angrily, "FATHER! I have told you over and over NOT to mention that in front of Inari!"
Another door slams.
"...So is this about what makes Inari acts so weird?" asks Madoka.
"It sounds like there's a story here," says Kakashi, knowing that they will hear it sooner or later, so it might as well be sooner. Besides, what is a mission without a tragic backstory from one of the clients?
"The man in the picture was not Inari's biological father," says Tazuna. "But they were so close and loving your would never know. Inari was such a happy child back then, always laughing…" to Kakashi's surprise, Tazuna breaks out in tears.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kakashi can see that Naruto is held riveted by the possibility of the story.
Tazuna pulls himself together and adds, "...but Inari changed after what happened to his father. Our people all called him a hero, especially Inari. They - we - were robbed of the very meaning of courage because of what happened that day."
"What happened?" asks Kakashi, annoyed that Tazuna isn't just freely spouting the tragic backstory like every other self-doubting mission client. "Would could have possibly happened to change Inari so much?"
"Let me start at the beginning," says Tazuna, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes. "And tell you about the man who was known as the champion of the Land of Waves."
"Champion…?" Naruto asks, even more interested.
Teuchi Ichiraku of Ichiraku Ramen serves the two masked shinobi their bowls of ramen and asks, "So how have you two been holding up?"
"It gets harder every day, Teuchi san," says Wind. "The sooner this whole silent war is over the better."
"I look forward to the day you two bring your son here, with your masks off and everyone knowing who you are," says Teuchi. No one is around, so they can speak freely, like everyone always does at his ramen stand.
"So what news from Konoha?" asks Rain, tuning his mask aside so that he can eat his ramen.
"The Sacred Scroll of Sealing was stolen from the Hokage's house by eight renegade Uchihas and an academy sensei named Mizuki," Teuchi tells them. "They have been entered into the new Bingo Book, but the village is trying to keep it quiet."
"Well, we better get that scroll back," says Rain. "Anything else?"
"Kakashi took his genin team to the Land of Waves," says Teuchi. "I heard Gato is in charge there. They may have bitten off more than they can chew guarding that bridge builder."
"We'll look into it," says Wind, pulling her mask back over her face.
Rain fixes his mask as well and says, "Thanks for the ramen, Teuchi san. We'd better be going before security finds us."
Teuchi smiles as the pair leaves. He wonders how everyone will react when they find out what Wind and Rain and the rest of Akatsuki have been doing behind the scenes. It will probably be best, no matter what happens, if no one finds out he is their informant in the Leaf.