[And damn it all to hell,
I'm still waiting for her to prove them wrong.]
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Despite the promise that Sasuke showed from an early age, and the potential that everyone knew deep down inside where no one wants to look that Naruto held great potential, it was Sakura whom the Elders placed their favor in.
More than anything, they considered Sasuke a mistake. When they convened in dimly lit chambers, high above the ramshackle housing of the village- When they gathered to speak in rooms with lavish furniture and silken drapes and air hung with cloying, red incense from the east- it was always mentioned (at first heatedly, then in passing, and finally as a footnote of minor duress) what should be done about the little Uchiha problem. None of them were supposed to survive. The job was unclean, Itachi had not been trustworthy, as much as the Hokage had insisted that he was a perfect shinobi.
Itachi had left the village with blood drying on the edges of his clothes, turning them stiff, and a threat of vengeance on his too young lips:
Sasuke was not to be touched.
And they had not. In the same vein that they had not harmed the little boy named Naruto. From the time when the kitsune was bound inside the infant's body, they had debated fiercely how to deal with him. On many occasions they had come close to banishing the boy from the village completely. In the end, what stayed their hand of judgment was the fear of a public backlash. While the majority of the villages inhabitants still carried scars of fear and avoided the cursed child like disease, several of the higher ranking shinobi still remembered the sacrifice of love which protected them. The sacrifice which allowed them to carry on in peace and health, and just who the whiskered boy really was still sometimes pulled at their hearts.
The Elders were not blind to the boys plight. Indeed, they saw how he struggled to learn the things which other children were taught by family and physical touch. They saw the way he desperately reached out for attention, how he gazed in longing at those whom he viewed as possessing what he lacked.
And they saw, too, the last Uchiha child grow cold and quiet. They watched as Sasuke became estranged and volatile, how his consternation for his peers grew, and in particular, Naruto.
Finally, they saw Sakura. A girl from a useless name, a family with no outstanding qualities. Parents who lived a life a slow contentment, and worried over their only child. Parents who made sure she always had a perfect bento everyday, and shoes with bows and socks with kittens embroidered round the top. A girl who had never lost anyone, and with not enough instinct left in her blood to kill a rat.
When the time came to place the young gennin in groups "based on compatibility of character, blood, and capability…" the Elders grinned twisted grins of old age and black, rotted teeth. They would not touch the last Uchiha, nor the jinchuuriki. They wouldn't have to.
And poor Sakura, they knew she would not survive between the two embittered boys. Despite her potential and mental acuity, they knew she was not strong enough to support a working relationship, one which would keep them alive in the dangerous situations which such a team would surely, inexplicably, find itself in. Despite the promise that Sasuke showed from an early age, and the potential that everyone knew deep down inside where no one wants to look that Naruto held great potential, it was Sakura whom the Elders placed their favor in.
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