New Mom complained to New Dad at dinner that night about the treatment she had received. He was sympathetic, and promised to find better tea the next time he was on a trip in order to better attract clan ninja to our teahouse. Apparently we didn't get ninja customers all that often.

Geez, I wonder why.

My older sisters were also sympathetic, reporting in on how they were doing in their appointed mission to attract boys at ages six and eight respectively. Yes, even my six year old sister Tomi, although she was mostly talking about how she was making herself look pretty and how the Inuzukas were "gross".

I was fighting shudders the whole time.

If I had any compunctions about being a ninja, they were gone now. I was not remaining a civilian and staying in this toxic environment, nope. I was outta here.

High chances of death and injury? Sure! Being a child soldier? Sign me up!

I'd rather die on the battlefield then slowly feel my soul be smothered under an early marriage and the constant pressure to be a traditional, perfect wife.

Also, according to most of my sources, genin would be considered adults the moment they got their hitai-ate, and therefore would be eligible to move out on their own. I'd have to double check that, but it was worth looking into. Might even be worth looking into graduating early.

Now, how to prepare.

…

"Kaa-san! I want to train to be a good ninja!" I surprised New Mom with one morning.

"Oh that's wonderful dear!" she said, happily. "That's such a big girl thing to do."

I nodded. "So where can I go to train?" I think she'd have a problem with three-year-old me heading out to go who knows where.

"You can do that right here!"

"But what about running?" We did have a garden, but I wasn't allowed in it. That was kept neat and tidy for guests of the teahouse to reflect upon. Also it might dirty my clothing.

"Run? Why would you want to do that?" She asked me. "I thought you wanted to train?"

"Running is training?" Wasn't that obvious?

"Oh no no no," she smiled at me. "Running is for boys. Running makes you sweaty and gross feeling, so when girls do it boys don't like them as much."

"But training?" I asked.

"Wait here," she told me. She went upstairs for a moment and then came back down with a small box and a handheld mirror.

When she got to me New Mom knelt down and opened the box to reveal jewelry.

"Its very important for girls to be able to accessorize," She told me. "Why don't you play, sorry, train with my jewelry!"

I looked up at her. "How?"

"Well, you can pick which pieces you think go good together, or you can try to do your hair up, or something like that. Just have fun!" she told me brightly.

I sighed and tried not to look disappointed. Well, that was a bust.

..

It quickly became apparent that the way things were, I wouldn't be headed out for training for a while, and my new family disapproved of anything too physical, or anything that might give me *gasp* muscles. As such, all real training had to be kept to hours when they wouldn't notice. Given that New Mom woke me up in the mornings, this resulted in me doing a lot of training at night, mostly dance stretches, what little yoga I remembered, and strength training.

Really, this was making me wonder how well my sisters were doing. If they didn't exercise at all, or only exercised at school, they couldn't be doing too well in classes.

Then again, Sakura was pretty weak when she came out, and she was Kunoichi of the year apparently, so what did I know.

Still, trying to remember the old dance stretches I did in college gave me an idea.

...

"Kaa-san," I asked again. "Can I learn to dance?"

"Dancing? Oh what a wonderful idea!" New Mom clapped her hands. "I think your sister Aiko knows a few things. They cover it in kunoichi classes I believe."

"What about lessons?"

"Why don't you see if you like what Aiko shows you first."

…

Aiko didn't know a lot, mostly simple steps and things. Still, I practiced it a lot, and bugged her to teach me more, in view of New Mom and everyone else, which was easy to do as really didn't have anything better to do with my time. This led to Tomi deciding she also needed to learn how to dance, so New Mom signed us all up for dance lessons.

They weren't very detailed lessons, more focused on building balance, flexibility, and agility more than anything else, but that was why I wanted the lessons, so it was fine.

Also, New Mom had found a dance studio run by a retired ninja (of course) so this was an opportunity to scout out what kunoichi were really like.

Nanami-sensei was whip-thin, with a delicate grace, sharp eyes, and scarred forearms that everyone pretended not to see. I also got the impression she saw a lot more than she pretended to. I liked her.

A few months later Aiko got a complement from one of her teachers over having better footwork in class and the dance lessons were here to stay.

…

The dance lessons were all very good, but I still wasn't doing a lot of cardio. The reason for this being, of course, that New Mom still didn't want to let me leave her sight for long periods of time, and there wasn't any really good ways to train cardio in one place. At least, not without making a lot of noise and getting scolded.

The solution to my problem came when one day, while helping New Mom run errands, we came across a young boy my age on his own shopping for groceries.

"Kaa-san," I asked, pointing at him. "Why is he on his own?"

She looked over and squealed softly. "Oh how precious! He must be doing his first errand!"

"What's a first errand?"

"Well, when a young boy or a young girl gets to be old enough, they get set out to do a quick errand," she explained.

"All alone?"

"Uhuh!"

"I want to do one!"

"Maybe when you're a little older dear."

"He's doing his now," I said, trying not to sound petulant and failing miserably. Stupid child brain and stupid child inability to deal with emotions.

"He's a boy, my little flower."

…

I had been an adult before, even though I wasn't the best at adulting, I was still capable of doing chores well.

As such, in a bid to prove myself responsible enough for my first errand and the beginnings of freedom, I started volunteering for extra chores and to help New Mom whenever she needed it. A lot of it was fairly basic and boring, but I had lots of practice with basic and boring by now.

Finally, my chance came.

"Hana-chan!" New Mom called.

"Yes?" I poked my head out from the living room.

"Can you take this to your sister Tomi-chan? She forgot her lunch," New Mom asked, holding a bento box in one hand.

"At the Academy?"

"Yes, I think you're old enough now."

I gasped and beamed at her. "Yes, thank you Kaa-san!"

I ran forward and hugged her around the legs. Finally! Freedom!

Mom giggled and patted my head. Then she handed me the bento box and shooed me out the door.

"Remember! No running!" she said as I left.

Of course, that meant I started running as soon as I was fairly certain I was out of earshot.

...

It was bright and sunny out. The birds were singing, children were laughing, and I was desperately trying to force as much air as I could in and out of my tiny lungs. Not having any real cardio for several months had taken their toll, and I was struggling now.

Even so, it was a good pain. I was finally outside.

Shortly before the academy, I slowed down, so I wouldn't appear completely winded. I just knew Tomi would tell on me if it looked like I had been running too much.

The academy itself was big, which made sense. I wasn't certain how big Konoha's Shinobi corps really were, but there was obviously a lot of ninja, and the Academy saw six years of children at any given time. Luckily, the massive doors were easy to open.

Once I was inside, I looked around. There was a large circular foyer area with what looked like announcement boards and a flight of stairs. I ignored the stairs, as Tomi was a 1st year student and therefore most likely to be on the bottom floor.

I had just started padding down the hall when a voice surprised me with a "Hello?"

I looked behind me to see a ninja with brown hair and blue pupilless eyes smiling down at me. Another Yamanaka..?

I turned around. "Hello, Shinobi-san." I bowed.

"And what are you doing here? You look a bit young to be one of our students."

I raised the bento box. "Delivering lunch to Tomi-nee-san. Do you know where she is?"

He hummed. "Do you know her classroom number?"

"Class 1-3, Shinobi-san."

"They should be doing history right now. Just down the hall."

He escorted me down the hall, to an unmarked door. I wondered how people were supposed to find their way around, but I suppose it made sense. The people that were supposed to be there knew where everything was, whereas enemies would need to do a lot more searching, making them easier to find.

The unknown shinobi knocked on the door. "Delivery for Tomi-san," he announced.

I poked my head inside as the doors opened. The classroom reminded me a lot of university classes in the older buildings were like, but with much smaller desks. I waved at Tomi, who was in the middle of the desks, and raised the bento box so she could see.

Tomi blushed bright red, and quickly ran over to grab her lunch. I winced internally. That must've been embarrassing.

Shinobi-san stopped her as she turned around to go back to her seat.

"What do we say when someone helps us?" he prompted.

"Thank you," she muttered.

"You're welcome," I said softly, trying not to make this worse for her. That being done, she quickly hurried back to her desk.

My job done, I turned to leave. Again, the unknown shinobi accompanied me to the academy doors.

As he opened the doors for me, I turned around and bowed. "Thank you Shinobi-san," I said.

"It's no problem," he said. "Have a good day."

"Have a good day," I said as I left.

Once again, I took the way back as an opportunity to run, stopping slightly before getting home to stop breathing so hard.

New Mom congratulated me when I got back, and the rest of my family did the same at dinner. Even Tomi did, after she got over the embarrassment of having her kid sister bring her lunch.

From that day forward, New Mom allowed me to go on the occasional errand on my own, which was very helpful in allowing me to increase my poor stamina. As much as I would have liked to use the opportunity to branch out and explore Konoha, I knew full well if I didn't do the work well and in a reasonable amount of time, my new minute amount of freedom would disappear, and I wasn't willing to risk it.

…

Then I turned four.

"Congratulations, my little flower!" said New Dad. "You are now old enough for preschool!"