Mom was always so good.

They lived at the edge of the Leaf Village together, alone in that little house. Just Ashita and her mother.

There were the occasional visits from Dad. He showed up once or twice, and showed that tiny girl a few of his tricks. Like how he could make his arms extend on forever or wear anyone's face and take anyone's voice. And she loved him and was so excited when those rare, almost nonexistent visits came, even though she was sworn to secrecy and had to pretend like that man really was gone indefinitely. A shadow that just melted away when the sun turned its head.

It would have been better if that was true.

Mom took great care of Baby. Whenever those mean-as-shit village kids would make fun of her, she showed that little girl how to be tough. Even when her father's reputation drowned out any of the words she could come up with. Even soak her miniscule, porcelain fists in acidic black hate that clung like tar and stank as bad as gasoline.

The terrible things everyone would say.

"I wonder if she'll start doing human experimentation."

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"Have you seen how pale she is? The girl is so white, she's practically blue!"

"If you can look close enough, you can see that her pupils are slit."

"I head she has fangs."

The children, the mothers, the entire village had a story made up about that girl named Tomorrow. That sweet little thing, dressed in a happy pink kimono, with her hair tied into a pony tail at the crown of her head. She tried so hard, to fit in. Make the paper white flesh go olive and those stupid, ugly snake eyes pop into big, round little girl eyes. But it never happened.

Some days, it was too damn hard and she'd come home crying. Then Mom would scoop her up and hold her real close, with smooches to the cheeks and forehead and the tip of her nose. Mom sucked the poison out when all those little rats threw their darts.

If there was time, Ashita's hair was brushed out. It was ink-black and long, stretching all the way down to her back. Mom would style it; tell her how pretty she was and shove ornaments into the sections she had made. Ones that had been collected for a wedding day that never happened. Sometimes that woman could be eccentric. You'd never know what she'd do next, or even what she'd say. It all resided on her mood, which was about as dependable as a rickety bridge over a sky-high canyon. But she loved the hell out of Baby. The parts of her everyone made fun of were some of Mom's favorites. Mom loved to soak Ashita's cheeks in blush and make those glorious emerald eyes sparkle. The very same emeralds she snatched right from mother's face.

Every night, the two would sit on the porch and look at the village, while the woman smoked one or two cigarettes. There were so many lights that illuminated the entire scene like fireflies in tangled up night. Sometimes, the scent of the just eaten dinner would drift outside and fill up either of their lungs.

Mom was a hell of a cook too.

So it was hard, when that woman got terribly sick with some kind of disease no one could figure out. Everyone, even the finest doctors in all of Konoha, felt like they were looking at Rubik's cube with all the stickers rearranged so it wouldn't work. So it couldn't work, no matter how many times you twisted the damn thing.

It ate her alive for two years, like internal leprosy that made her body swell up in night sweats and her hair turn awful salt and pepper grey. Mom lost weight. She lost the healthy glow to the olive colored skin Ashita wished she had. She lost the energy it took to do the laundry and make dinner and tell Baby it was all going to be alright. Because it fucking wasn't and everyone knew it.

The girl's hard eyes got harder. They glazed over with the kind of hatred and pain you see in the worst of train wreck tragedies. The kids didn't make fun of her anymore. She beat the living shit out of them. They'd come home with black eyes and bruises and lips that were shut real goddamn tight. Ashita was the top of the class, since that Itachi Uchiha ran away, and no one had the audacity anymore to even look at her funny.

If they did, they might not be able to do it again.

Mom died when she was fourteen.

Part of it was relief and another was unending, relentless sorrow. The kind that ties you down and breaks both of your knees with a metal bat. Ashita could hardly move when it happened. The will to breathe just up and left like her father. Like her mother's sprit right before her eyes.

What was even worse was the village had this orphan girl no one wanted. Finding a family to adopt Ashita was like trying to find a vein on a heroin addict. So when someone did step forward, no one batted one eyelash. It was like a sign from above, from the soft part in that kingdom of silver clouds with golden linings, floating in a sea of happy sapphire pastel.

To this day, she couldn't tell you how her father did it. The falsified papers looked even nicer than the real ones. His acting was superb. So much so, that girl almost had hope glimmer in her already blackened heart. Like a shimmer of a star during an entirely cloudy night. That maybe she really had lost a loving mother, but gained a caring father. That maybe, some sort of celestial God was looking out for her wellbeing. A guardian angel. An Indian Goddess with too many arms. Fuck, take your pick.

But something was wrong. When they walked straight out of the village this sinking feeling set in. Because the sweetness in the man's face faded away like incense smoke, all the way up to those bastard heavens, for the gods who couldn't be bothered to give two shits.

Ashita knew who it was. She knew who it was before he even needed to tear away the mask.

They went to the Sound Village and it was over. Ashita was certain that Konoha would be nothing more than a distant memory. And that was almost alright. That village was like a series of bee stings, and even if the girl had developed immunity, it was pleasant not to deal with the pin pricks all the time.

But she had traded the beehive for a snake pit.

And the venom was a lot more difficult to adjust to.

The first three days, Orochimaru allowed her to cry. The girl rolled into a ball against her already ancient mattress and wept until the consciousness decided to leave her. There wasn't any movement of her rail thin limbs. Of her mouth or really anything else. Those eyes were the only fraction of her that could still feel. Like all of it had just floated up to the top and could be picked out by one dip of the spoon.

Ashita had never wanted a lobotomy so badly.

After those precise seventy-two hours, her father came in and tore her out of bed, to begin training. There was only so much moping the girl was allowed before it was time to move on. But you could still see death inside those wicked green eyes. They were drowned in disappointment and crushed up dreams, like a pile of broken glass and sawdust in an entire rainbow of colors.

So Ashita took all her fragmented bits and built new hopes, even if it cut her fingers up like a thousand tiny knives.

She tried to impress her father.

That went as well as it did for anyone else.

Whenever the girl did something right, the man was entirely silent. He gave her small critiques and a pinch of approval, which was even less than what anyone would consider a pinch. When she fucked up, that old bastard yelled at the very top of his voice like she broke a piece of furniture by playing dodge ball inside, or managed to wake him up in the middle if the night by being loud and stupid.

Ashita worked harder than she ever worked in her life. Her hands got bloodied up. Her muscles grew sore and wrought with ache. Her porcelain white, delicate skin got sunburned and scarred and beaten. It was like bleeding for pennies to pay back a million dollar debt. The person her father wanted her to be and the person she was were worlds apart. Ashita was looking into a chasm she had to clear, but it was too far and too deep.

So that fourteen year old girl geared herself up to die trying. Because she knew it was impossible, but shooting honor in the kneecaps by not even giving an attempt was beyond shameful. It didn't matter that those knuckles were bruised and almost broken from giving tree bark a black eye. It didn't matter how many times the other kids got to cut her and leave her with scars. This was her life now, and the pain screaming from the broken limbs and sour black and blue was better than looking backward and longing for a childhood that was long dead. That part was buried with Mom, burned to ashes and stuck six feet underground.

So Ashita secured the Sound Village headband around her waist. Like maybe it was even something to take pride in. And he father shook his head because that tiny, stick thin child couldn't quite level a mountain yet.