Haruno Kita was tense as he headed home. The first hint he'd been given that his wife had broken her promise to stop embarrassing the family by making baseless accusations in an attempt to drive Sakura's sensei's family out of town the way she'd driven that foreign family out a couple years back had been when his new boss had come up to him, told him that he didn't blame him, and that he still had a job since he was a good worker and what was going on wasn't really his fault.
His wife's current attempts at trying to drive another family out of Konoha hadn't gone so well for their own family. Sakura's sensei was related to a scary and powerful man who could crush his family like a bug if he so chose, and everyone knew it. Because everyone knew it, they did their best to avoid supporting them lest they find themselves guilty of challenging Danzo by association. Add the fact that many ninja were upset that they hadn't been taking care of their daughter correctly, and their family, he and his wife at least, were pretty much personae non gratae in Konoha.
On the way home, he had received a number of looks of pity and/or concern that confirmed the fact that his wife had been unable to keep her promise for even a week. To add to his confusion, the old doctor he'd known since he was a child, and had been bringing his daughter to, had walked up to him and asked him to schedule an appointment for his daughter since the girl had walked out on an examination when he'd run into him while he was on his way home from the clinic. As it had been for the last few weeks, the whispers that had steadily begun to turn harsh continued to follow him as he passed.
"Dear," he said as soon as he got into the door to find his red-eyed wife who'd obviously been crying earlier waiting for him. "I thought that you had promised to quit trying to antagonize the Shimura family."
"I did." his wife wailed, "But, you didn't see Sakura when she returned. It was obvious that they were mistreating her, and they made her too afraid to say anything other than what they wanted her to say. You should have seen her! She ran out of the clinic in fear!"
"Where is she now?" he asked, concerned about his daughter, and praying that things weren't anywhere near as bad as his wife had been portraying them.
"I don't know. She left a note saying that she was moving out!" his wife wailed.
Sakura sighed as she made her way to the first place on the short list she had made the day she'd passed the graduation exam when she'd been flush with excitement over her newfound state of adulthood and considered taking it one step further. She'd almost thrown the list out the next day when she'd realized how expensive the prospect was, and that she wouldn't have anyone there to fix her meals for her, to tuck her in at night, and to tend to her when she was sad, lonely, or ill. Now, despite the fact that she had a feeling that she was being a bit rash, she was a bit glad she hadn't thrown the list out.
If Naruto and Sasuke could live on their own without any parents telling them what to do or, worse, completely embarrassing them in front of the entire village, then she could too. She'd miss her mom's cooking, and seeing her dad at dinner and sometimes breakfast, but that was a natural consequence of living on her own.
Normally, her mother wasn't anywhere near as bad as this, and she was a good mother who had made sure she had everything she needed, comforted her when she was down, and had dinner on the table for if she wanted it. But lately, her mother had gone into Extreme Mode. Her mother rarely if ever went into Extreme Mode, unless someone either very seriously upset her like that one woman who had constantly been bitchy towards her and eventually knocked her into the mud in the marketplace had been, or unless something that was precious to her was threatened in some way. When her mother was in Extreme Mode, you'd better hope you weren't her target because she would do anything it took to destroy you.
She pulled herself out of her musing, and focused on the large building in front of her that had once been a roadside inn back before the founding of Konoha which provided reputable Genin housing from what she'd heard. From the outside, it looked to be reasonably well kept for a centuries old building that had been inhabited almost solely by teenagers and young adults who'd been specially trained to destroy things for the last fifty years. There were a number of older teenagers hanging around on the porch, and it was quite obvious that they were ninja despite the fact that they were dressed in off-duty attire. They were too alert, and there were far too many weapons evident for them to be anything else.
After passing the rather intimidating group that was hanging out on the porch, who'd stared at her the entire time, she almost timidly made her way to the main office, cowed by the stares and the whispers which had followed her along the way. Apparently, word of her mother's behavior at the clinic had already gotten around. She ended up leaving the office, and the building altogether, five minutes later, after the manager of the building that was more like a boarding house than an apartment complex had apologetically informed her that there were no openings, and that the waitlist was a year long.
After that, she started making her way down the list of places that had rooms and apartments for rent at rates which appeared to be reasonable for someone living on a Genin income. As she did so, it quickly became apparent why most of those places were so reasonably priced. The cats that belonged to the old woman on Life street were absolutely vicious, and living in the same building as them would be taking her life into her own hands. Other people who were renting out rooms in their homes expected her to do the equivalent of several D-ranked missions for free while she lived there, and the apartment complexes turned out to be located in the parts of town where it was recommended that you have several weapons on hand before approaching.
Finally, as darkness fell, when she was about to give up hope, she made her way to the last building on the list. The building was a bit old and run down, but it wasn't too bad, and the neighborhood it was in wasn't in the worst part of town either. Honestly, after the other places she'd seen, she was confused and somewhat wary as to why the rent there was so low. Despite the late hour, the manager, who seemed to be a nice enough person, had shown her around a reasonably sized if somewhat elderly apartment that she could actually see herself living in.
Almost afraid that there had been a misprint in the advertisement that had caused her to put the place on the list, she had asked the manager what the rent was. The advertisement had been completely accurate. Half fearing that she'd find asbestos in the walls or something, she signed the lease despite the fact that her instincts were telling her that the manager was trying to hide something from her. So far, aside from home, which she would need to move away from one day anyway, this place had been the best option available.
After entering her new apartment to set down the bag of belongings she'd hurriedly packed before leaving, she turned around to head to her former home in order to pick up the rest of her stuff. On the way out of the building, she had almost run into Naruto who had been coming up the stairs.
"Hey Sakura, what are you doing here?" Naruto asked.
"I live here." she replied, wondering what Naruto was doing here, and if he'd been stalking her for some reason.
"That's funny, so do I." Naruto said.
Haruno Kita perked up slightly when he'd heard the front door open. He had been waiting all evening for his daughter to return, and half fearing that she wouldn't since there were any number of places she could have gone to stay until she found a new place to live. The fact that she'd come home instead seemed to be a good sign.
"Hi dad, I've missed you." Sakura said as she gave him a hug when he went to the door to greet her.
He quietly studied his daughter, searching for signs of the horrendous abuse she'd supposedly gone through, and the terror that his wife had spoke of. She didn't look any more badly banged up than a number of his ninja acquaintances had after intense training, and she didn't look particularly fearful or as if she were trying to hide anything from him. A few of the scratches he saw on her arms and legs reminded him of how a childhood friend of his who'd gone through the Academy had looked after he'd learned how to jump through trees but, before he'd learned how to avoid twigs and small branches. About the most shocking change to her appearance was the fact that her hair had been cut short but, many Kunoichi did that after Academy graduation when they got into the field where long hair would get snagged on branches and such unless it was properly pinned back. They usually ended up growing it back later if at all.
"I've missed you too sweetheart." he said when he finished looking his daughter over, and finding much to his relief that it appeared that his wife had been exaggerating.
"What's this I hear about you moving out?" he asked his daughter.
"I'm sorry," Sakura said sadly. "Mom completely humiliated me at the clinic, and in front of the doctor, and I ran off to go look for an apartment so I wouldn't have to deal with her. I have to move now since I already signed the lease."
"You don't seem to be all that happy about moving." he said, knowing that Sakura's sudden decision had become problematic. He couldn't get his child out of the lease agreement because she was an adult under Konoha law and, because of that, Sakura would have to pay for the apartment for however long the lease was for, even if she didn't move in.
"I don't want to leave you and mom behind no matter how annoying she's being right now, and Naruto lives in the building." Sakura replied.
Oh dear. Barako hadn't entirely been imagining things. Considering the fact that Sakura actually seemed to be afraid to live in the same building as Naruto, it was clear that something had really happened while his daughter was away.
"Why don't you want to live in the same building as your teammate dear?" he asked carefully, watching her to see if she would try to hide anything from him, afraid of what the demon in a child's skin could have done to his daughter while she had gone somewhere where he couldn't keep her safe.
"He was nice to me during the trip and all, but I know for a fact that he's dangerous." Sakura replied.
"What makes you think he's dangerous?" he asked, almost afraid to learn that his wife may have broken a law that she shouldn't have.
"I tried to hit him once, and he threatened to break my arm." Sakura said. "When mom took me to file a complaint against him, the guy at the complaints desk told me about how he had ripped apart a Genin team from Iwa with his bare hands."
He felt slightly faint as he tried to process his daughter's statement, and exactly what his daughter had gotten into in becoming a ninja. He'd known that ninja were different, but that statement clearly illustrated the difference. A normal, law abiding civilian from Konoha at least would have found the ideas of killings such as that horrific. For a shinobi, such killing was apparently considered admirable, considering how opinion of the demon had shifted amongst the shinobi ranks in recent times.
"At least they were from Iwa." he finally said, as he vaguely patted his daughter on the head before going to sit down, feeling slightly faint as he fully realized that his daughter's life would now be following a blood soaked path.
Omake: Sakura's First Try Parents meet Sakura's Anime Parents
"An accountant huh?" Haruno Kizashi said as he studied the other man whose hair had been slicked down and back rather than combed up in his famous Cherry Blossom design.
"You try being babysat by Danzo when you're a little kid and see if you still want to be a ninja afterward." Haruno Kita replied.
"Yeah, I could see how that could happen. Danzo's given me the creeps since day one." Kizashi replied.
"Our Danzo eats people." Kita said in a manner that almost seemed as if he was trying to one-up him.
"Really?" Kizashi asked, slightly disturbed by the turn the conversation had taken.
Despite the fact that he looked normal on the surface, there was obviously something wrong with his more Kizashi studied the man who was mentally disturbed on some level at the very least, the more inclined he was to believe that the man was more a sibling or a cousin than a straight counterpart.
He'd run into a number of Harunos who had fathered children identical in name and appearance to his daughter who'd had different ancestors than he did on his and his wife's brief tour of the multiverse. Amazingly, just as often as there were worlds where he had married his dear Meibuki, and they had Sakura, there were worlds where their Sakura was born to people who had nothing in common with them aside from the Haruno family name, and a few common ancestors in the distant past. One of the more memorable Haruno couples that particularly stood out in his mind had been the fellow who had looked a great deal like a white haired cat turned human who had been married to what he could have sworn was an Uzumaki.
"And you are...?" Haruno Meibuki asked the woman who was standing next to Haruno Kita, though it was clear that she recognized her.
"Haruno Barako." Kita's wife replied, putting a special emphasis on the Haruno, clearly recognizing the other woman as well.
Apparently, this was yet another universe where Barako and Meibuki both existed and were both rivals. There had been any number of universes where one or the other hadn't existed, just as there had been any number of universes where Sakura's mother had been named Barako but hadn't been that Barako. Meeting the pink-haired half Uzumaki Barako who had been born in that Barako's stead had been quite the experience, especially since it had been his counterpart who'd been the blond instead of his wife's.
"Nice to meet you." Meibuki replied in a falsely sweet tone.
"Likewise." Barako replied in a tone that was just as saccharine.
The rest of the visit was somewhat tense thanks to Barako and Meibuki's somewhat catty behavior. Based on the look that poor disturbed Kita fellow was giving Meibuki, the man seemed to have regretted marrying Barako instead. He knew that he would have regretted marrying Barako if he'd married her himself. The woman was a shrew, and poor Mr. Takeda down the street was the most henpecked man he knew. How a woman like that could create a child that bore any resemblance to his precious Sakura, he didn't know.
"I can't believe that there's a world where you married her." Mebuki said to her husband when they returned to their own world where their Sakura was waiting.
"That poor Kita fellow isn't exactly me dear, so it's safe to say that there isn't a world where I married that woman." Kizashi replied.
Edited 10-6-12