A/N(2): Edited and reposted. I'm much happier with it now.

This particular snippet is semi-sorta illustrated by yours truly, and the picture(s) are now up on my deviantart gallery! The link's in my profile, and if you look in the gallery itself you'll find some more pictures for Old History and The Rokudaime.

Anyway.

Until the next bit!

-Rhys

Sakura's Age: 27

Year of Reign: 11

Genre: General/Contemplative

In the Blink of an Eye

(The Smell of Copper)

For all accounts and purposes, Tanaka Moegi's childhood passed within the blink of an eye.

It was unsurprising, really, having grown up in a household of ninja and having two best friends that were third-generation shinobi. She had been introduced to concepts such as predicting flight trajectories for shuriken in varying conditions at the same time as she'd begun learning how to read and write kanji. She had grown immune to members of her family returning in varying states injury, oftentimes reeking of the smell of copper. When her brother, Yasuo, came home utterly drenched in copper-smelling fluid, she'd been only slightly dismayed. When he hadn't returned at all, she had wept, remembered, and then entered the Academy and left her childhood behind.

For all accounts and purposes, Tanaka Moegi's student life passed within the blink of an eye.

She entered the Academy early at the age of six. Not because she wished to graduate early, but because she wanted the time to learn it correctly, and be able to do it right, well enough that the smell of copper might leave her. So she spent a full six years taking every class available, mastering each, and graduating with her two best friends as the number one rookie of their year. They had been placed on a team under Ebisu-sensei, although not on her merit, but on Konohamaru's as the Sandaime's grandson. They had studied under him for less than a year when the Second Siege reshaped their lives, and all three had made chuunin on Moegi's thirteenth birthday. Not even the Rookie Nine could claim that.

For accounts and purposes, Tanaka Moegi's years on the field passed with in the blink of an eye.

As a student of Ebisu-sensei and a teammate of Yamagata Konohamaru, it was no surprise she specialized in stealth and reconnaissance. The Rokudaime often used her for last minute positioning and maneuvering during her war campaigns. The smell of copper seeped into her bones. But an unanticipated lull on the war front came about during the Hokage's nineteenth year, and Moegi had been reassigned to Konoha, and the Academy.

For all accounts and purposes, Moegi's teaching years passed within the blink of an eye.

Haruno-sama had once made the comment that Moegi was her generation's Umino Iruka at the Academy. She had stuttered and blushed, honored at the undeserved compliment, but it wasn't until Naruto-sama, Iruka-sensei's foster son, had echoed the comment that she really thought considered it, and began to understand why she loved to teach. It was not that she wished to emulate Iruka-sensei. Rather, she immersed herself in giving her students every scrap of knowledge and hard-earned wisdom she possessed. She wanted them to live long enough and well enough that they could teach her what it was like to be a child, to be a student, to forget the smell of copper.

She made headmaster at the age of seventeen, and felt ancient compared to students only five years younger than her. The evacuation came mere months later, and reinstatement as a teacher at Suna's Academy shortly after. There she had been both student and teacher, learning the techniques and talents of the Wind that she might pass both on to her students.

And now as she stood before her beloved Hokage and accepted to her offer of promotion into the ranks of jounin, she could only wish she did not tremble in fear of the years to come, and hope that the rest of her life would not pass in the blink of an eye.

She was tired of the smell of copper.

-owari-