Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise. There are portions in this story that have been pulled directly from the original content- mainly dialogue though I have tried to put it in my own words as much as I felt I could. I have not and will not mark it in each chapter because I feel it would detract from the story if I keep adding authors notes and/or comments inside the work. Suffice it to say if you recognise it from the original content then it's clearly not mine.
Recognition of other fan-fiction authors works: I have read a lot of stories and have been inspired by countless authors. Not just in this fandom but in others as well. With the amount that I read and the screeds that I write- 99% of which shall remain unpublished, sometimes the words of others come out of my mouth or are typed on a page. I do not want to take away the recognition of the author who wrote them first. It's just that I honestly cannot recall title, author, or the website that I read it on, what I do remember are snappy lines, sappy lines, lines that made me laugh or cry. I remember the way the author made me feel.
If you recognise anything in this story from somewhere else- maybe it's from one of your own stories, please reach out and tell me. I'd love to credit the original author for the inspiration or direct reference that may have slipped in.
~G
We'reallgoingtodiewe'reallgoingtodiewe'reallgoingtodiewe'reallgoingtodiewe'reallgoingtodiewe'reallgoing
Get it together Sakura! Or we really are going to die! Inner screamed inside her head, jolting her out of her frozen state.
She couldn't do anything for her teammates though. She was Tazuna's last line of defence, and she was a pitiful one. It was a miracle that her shaking hands could hold onto her kunai. She was more liable to hurt herself than hurt others. She should have practised more. Should have paid more attention to her instructors instead of fawning over Sasuke like a love sick idiot.
So what are you going to do about it?
What do you mean?
I mean, you should have practised more. What are you going to about that now? Do you even want to be a ninja?
Sakura frowned thinking it over. Sasuke. She felt Inner push the thought of Sasuke to the side.
Ignore Sasuke. Do you want to be a ninja? Or do you want to return to being a civilian and all that that entails. Arranged marriage. Trophy wife or worse, concubine?
Sakura recoiled from the thought. She absolutely did not want that at all. She wanted the freedom to choose her own path, her own husband. The image of Sasuke was firmly pushed aside again. She wanted to be strong enough that she could stand on her own two feet and survive anything that was thrown at her.
I need to be a ninja if I want to be free.
Then you need to get serious about it. If we, you know, survive this.
I won't be a pretty bauble on display. She swore to herself. We can do this. We'll show
Watch out! Inner yelled at her and she instinctively ducked as a blade swept above her. It would have ended her career and her life if Inner hadn't been paying attention. Sakura reached out and caught the wrist of her attacker. She twisted the blade from his grip even as she kicked him hard in the side of the neck. The man dropped bonelessly. She checked his pulse.
Her first kill.
Inner urged her to collect the blade's scabbard and she untied it from the dead man's belt with shaking fingers. She turned her attention back to the others to avoid thinking about it. Sasuke was down, Naruto was standing over him protectively. The hunter-nin was on the ground in front of Kakashi and Zabuza was... Zabuza was killing Gato's thugs with nothing but a kunai clenched between his teeth.
It made a much larger impact on her than it probably should have.
Sakura left her team after collecting their pay. Their A-ranked pay. She just walked off ignoring Naruto's calls to go and have Ramen with them. She didn't acknowledge Sasuke at all which made him frown at the unusualness of it. Kakashi watched her go from behind his book and wondered if he'd still have a full team of genin by the end of the week which was when they'd be back on the mission roster.
She wandered through the village market to the civilian districts. The Haruno clan were craftsmen and merchants. Her parents had both flirted with a shinobi career but neither of them had been able to advance past genin, so had both retired and returned to their civilian roots and picked up civilian careers.
Sakura had argued with them for months about attending the Academy. Neither of them wanted her to go and have to- at best, face the disappointment of not being good enough, and at worst, be killed in action. Eventually they got tired of trying to talk her out of it and enrolled her to start the next semester. She had already exceeded their expectations by graduating to genin. Not a lot of civilian born manage to achieve even that.
There were a couple of notes on the table when she walked in. The first was from her mother telling her that they had been tasked with escorting a supply run for the clan and expected to be gone at least six weeks. The second note could have been her father's hand, though it was rushed. Sakura was instructed to go and stay with grandmother Atsuko.
It wasn't unusual that her parent's escorted supply runs for the various clan members. They just usually made sure that one of them was home at all times. Atsuko Haruno wasn't technically her Grandmother at all, but she'd raised a few of the clan orphans and had turned into something of a clan anomaly. The wizened old woman just didn't know how to die it seemed.
Sakura emptied her pack and tossed almost everything into the washer along with the clothes she was wearing. She spent just as long as the wash cycle in the bathroom scrubbing every speck of dirt away. She aired out her pack and hung her clothes out to dry on the balcony.
She'd already decided that a change of wardrobe was needed. Her red qipao dresses were too bright, too flimsy, and too civilian. Darker clothing was a must. Made for shinobi with filament woven into the cloth that stopped all the small slices and cuts that on her dresses she was forever repairing. Something hooded to hide her hair too, because sugary pink stood out just as much as red did.
"Hair ties," she muttered wondering if she should be writing down a list. She needed to stock up on weapons and supplies, hers were woefully inadequate. A handful of kunai, three shuriken, two paper bombs and a single length of wire just wasn't going to cut it.
And a tanto blade Inner reminded her. Sakura let her eyes fall on the blade she'd taken from the man who tried to kill her. The hilt and sheath were richly decorated, mother-of-pearl formed the cherry blossoms, and the blade itself had a branch holding a few buds and flowers etched into the blade. The cord was dark blue and contrasted nicely with the cream and pink. It had been well looked after before she'd taken it, and she had made sure that it was in top condition before she hid it in her pack.
It was creepy, taking a trophy from her first kill. But it was more than that too. It marked her decision to take her career as a shinobi seriously. It reminded her that to survive she would have to kill those that wanted to kill her. That life was just as fleeting as those cherry blossoms if you weren't as hard as the steel.
