Chapter Text
The first time Sakura defied a rule she was four. It was actually even before she knew of the rule's existence.
But that is how it always worked, she never knew about a rule until it was broken.
Sakura was four and her parents had been on a business trip for five months while Sakura lived with her uncle. Five months of being taken care of by maids who never spoke to her and never let her outside. To say she had been excited would have been an understatement.
Her parents had walked through the door to her uncle’s house and Sakura had run up to hug them. She’ll never forget the contempt that appeared on their faces when she looked up.
A lady knew how to control her emotions
That was the first one.
Within the first couple days of living with her parents again she had compiled a list, nothing written because she couldn’t read yet but they were practically engraved into her skin every time the stick hit her calves.
Only speak when spoken to
Eyes down
Young ladies are to be seen and not heard
Be polite
This list was her lifeline which grew with her every year.
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When she was five she heard the word “kunoichi” for the first time. Her father had mentioned it during a conversation at dinner. A conversation Sakura was not allowed to be a part of because young ladies did not speak unless addressed.
Young ladies are to be seen and not heard
But Sakura had been little still. She made mistakes and so she opened her mouth and asked “What’s a ku-o-ichi?”
Her father hadn’t answered the question, simply calling her over next to him and instructing her to turn around and lift the back of her red dress over her calves. With each hit he had her count, never above twenty cause that’s as high as she could go. Although sometimes her daddy would go over and she would learn a new number.
Her parents refused to help Sakura with her wounds. They insisted that young ladies must deal with issues pertaining to their bodies by themselves. This also meant that her maids couldn’t help her. She remembers a time when other people used to bathe her, but that stopped with the first punishment.
The second time she heard that word was while talking to Ino when she was six. The blonde had proudly declared “I’m gonna be a kunoichi one day!” She hadn’t stumbled over the pronunciation like Sakura had, she said each syllable with a confidence that inspired Sakura to take a risk. So she asked the question again “What is a Kunoichi?”.
Ino had gaped at her, open mouth. “You don’t know what a kunoichi is! We need to fix this right now! Come to my house in an hour, I’ll show you the best job in the world!” and then she had run off. Sakura, not having anything else to do had sat there quietly (and politely thank you very much) for forty minutes and then made her way to Ino’s house.
“Now my dad let them know that we’ll be here so they don’t send anything out way but we still gotta stay outta the way which means we have to stay riiiiigghhhtt here” and she had plopped Sakura down on a bench next to a larger field within the Yamanaka compound.
When two women entered the field Ino squealed.
And then they started fighting.
It was mesmerizing. Each of them moved as if they were dancing, weaving in and out of the others personal space. Every now and then blows were exchanged, violet and hard but just as beautiful. Even from a distance the women had muscles, Sakura had never seen muscles on a woman before and as she watched a crimson trail of blood drip down the larger woman’s arm Sakura thought “I wanna be a kunoichi”.
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That experience pushed Sakura to the library and into a life of rule breaking. She didn’t tell her parents where she went every day, they didn’t think women belonged in places of education.
But Sakura would spend hours there reading every book the snooty librarians would let her get her hands on. She learned more about being a kunoichi and everything she could find on ninja’s. There were a lot of ninja villages and she lived in one of the most prominent. It sends a spark of pride down her spine. Within the villages there were ninja academies and children could join at certain ages. Five for Shinobi-born, eight for civilian-born, that’s what she was. Civilian-born kids apparently didn’t tend to join the training academy, and even with the ones that did there was only a fourteen percent chance of graduating.
The best thing she learned though when she was seven was that graduated genin were considered adults, no matter their age.
A few days after that discovery Sakura willingly broke two other rules.
First, she walked into her fathers study and looked up into his eyes as he sat behind his large desk. Her father had narrowed his eyes in turn, stopping what he was doing and looked down at her.
“I want to be a kunoichi,” she stated. That was number two.
She didn’t let his contempt waver her as he spoke. “You will not be a kunoichi, you are a young lady”.
She took a deep breath and grasped the hem of her dress with shaking fingers.
“I’m going to join the academy”
His gaze switched to one of rage as he called her mother into the room. The academy was open to orphans so a guardian's approval was not necessary. At least that was the excuse given, Sakura suspected it was actually so head families of clans couldn’t stop branch members from joining.
It worked the same way for Sakura.
Her mother seemed less bothered than her dad, only looking down her nose and stating that Kenta could deal with her. He was the head of their family and the person in charge of the marriage arrangement between Sakura and the Kazuo clan.
The marriage arrangement she could deny once she became a genin.
The next day Sakura’s parents took her to Kenta’s house. Unlike her parents Kenta, agreed to let her go to the academy, they wouldn’t try to hinder her. However, he agreed to this on the condition that she would train under Kuragari, a retired chunin.
“He will teach you what it means to live the life of a shinobi”. He told her.
Kuragari was a large man with wide shoulders and no hair. Instead, his scalp was decorated with small scars that disappeared into the collar of his shirt. The man held himself with a self-important air. And when he smiled down at her and something in her stomach twisted. For the first time in a while, she doubted herself.
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Training with Kuragari quickly became her least favorite chore of the day. She understood now why everyone pushed her away from a shinobi life. Every cut and broken bone was just another reason to accept her life as it was. The day before Sakura had to turn in her documents for the academy she asked Ino to watch another training session.
Sakura never doubted herself again.
But even as she entered the academy training sessions never stopped.
“Come on Sa-ku-ra, we’ve barely just started. Don’t tell me you’re tired already?”
She hated the way he said her name. They way he broke it up and emphasized each part as if it was it's own word. Lying on the floor Sakura distantly wondered if Shinobi children were born with higher pain tolerances, after all this was the type of training they were doing since they were old enough to walk. Maybe she was just weak.
She saw his fist coming down fast and tried to roll over but it hit her right in the stomach. Blood spat from her lips with each cough and she curled into herself even more. “P-please, s-stop, p-lease”
“The enemy won’t stop just because you’re tired. Sa-ku-ra. Stand up”. She hated the way he said her name, it slithered out of his mouth, smooth like the finest silks her mom shoved on her body every time they went over to the Kazuo clan. With a long groan she propped herself up on her elbows. Another hand came down and grabbed her hair, “You need to be faster”, it yanked her up with a shriek. White dots danced in her vision as her scalp burned. “Attention” Kuragari called and she scrambled to get her feet back underneath her. It’s what they had been working on for the past two hours.
Running on pure fear her hands clasped tightly behind her back, feet shoulder width apart, shoulders back, chin up (but not making eye contact).
Kuragari walked around her, inspecting. She kept her feet planted, prepared for…
Something shoved her from the left and she quickly recovered, the next one came from the right, behind her, left again, and then something swept her feet from under her. Her nose slammed into the ground with a crack. “Don’t expect every attack to be the same, you’re enemy is just as human as you are”
Blood ran from her nose, her head hurt, her calves stung, and she was covered with bruises.
She saw his feet approach her prone form.
How did she breathe again?
Her hair was tugged again but this time she didn’t sob, she barely felt it. Strong arms trapped her to a larger chest, a chin rested on her head as Kuragari sat on the floor with her. “Shhhh, shhhhh, it’s okay” Sakura realized she had been crying, “I was just showing you why you can’t be a shinobi, we can stop now if you want. Although…” the chin moved from the top of her head, replaced with a hand that tilted her head to the side.
Sakura closed her eyes.
“I will miss this” he spoke, hot breath hit her neck before it too was replaced, this time with his nose nuzzling her like some dog. Her body begs her to say no, to stop the pain and never see Kuragari again but then she remembers the woman fighting. She imagines that the strength of their hits are flowing into her as she opens her mouth. “I’m gonna be a kunoichi”. The vibrations of his chuckle send waves of cold everywhere their bodies touch.
Something wet cleans up the trail of blood on her neck and a deep voice asks “You sure”. She squeezes her eyes shut, she knows this part is a tactic, a tactic to get her to give in. As long as she resists, it’ll stop.
“I’m going to be a kunoichi”. Immediately she is let go and falls back to the ground.
“Then stand. up.”
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Medical Ninjutsu was something Sakura picked up a month after starting lessons with Kuragari. Now, at the age of ten she could heal most bruises, cuts and fractures. Broken bones still took longer. If she broke a bone while training Sakura had two options. If it was a weekend, she would try to heal it before monday. If it was during a week-day she would either skip or just not wrap it and sit out of activities. Not wrapping it was important, after the fifth time of coming in with a broken something (a wrist that time) her sensei had pulled her aside and given her a lecture on taking it easier.
It was clear to Sakura though that he didn’t see Sakura graduating and so he forced her to sit out of activities for three weeks to let the bone “heal”. She had fallen way behind and it took a while to catch back up.
She understood why he hadn’t believed in her though, three years into the academy and her grade only contained six civilian-born children left. The difference between her and them though, was that while they sat in the middle/bottom of the class. She was at the top. Kuragari’s training was very helpful. She could escape almost every hold, she was extremely good at dodging hits, and where the other children would cry after getting hurt Sakura rarely even flinched. On top of that, Sakura spent all of her free time in the library.
It was easier to study than to be home.
Besides that though, Sakura was practically invisible. During a group project just a week ago her partner had confessed it was the first time he ever heard her voice. See, whether at home or in public Sakura always followed her parent’s rules. That meant keeping her head down and keeping her mouth shut. Every time another student asked a question she would find herself wondering what type of punishment they would receive later for it. They must have really wanted to know the answer.
In her class there were a few that stood out. One was Ino, her best friend who had a massive crush on their other classmate, Sasuke Uchiha. Sasuke was always ranked one but in Sakura’s opinion Sasuke wasn’t anything special but all the other girls in the class liked him and it wasn’t okay to be different so she pretended. After them there were a few other clan students, a shy girl named Hinata, a big boy named Choji, a lazy one named Shikamaru, one with a dog named Kiba, a loud one named Naruto, and her favorite, Shino. Shino was quite like her, he seemed to follow all the rules like she did because he only spoke when spoken to. Plus he wore sunglasses so he never accidently made eye contact. Although she thought that might be a little unfair. No one could actually see what he was looking at.
But they didn’t matter because Sakura was ten and she was still in the academy. She was smart and she had knowledge that they didn’t.
She was seven when she learned how much force it took to break a child’s arm, nine when she learned how much for a grown man’s ribs. She was seven when she learned how to set her own shoulder. Eight when she learned how to stitch up deep wounds. She was eight when she learned exactly how much blood could be lost before a person passed out and nine when she finally felt accomplished enough in medical ninjutsu to call herself skilled.
None of this she learned at the school teaching her murder.
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Sakura is eleven and there is a new voice in her head. It calls for blood, and pain, and death. The voice tells her to do things that send electric sparks down her spine that she tells herself is disgust (the voice calls it pleasure).
Sakura is eleven and when the voice tells her to move, she moves.
She is eleven when she lets the voice overwhelm her.
She is eleven when she wakes up to a broken body and Kuragari standing over it. This is nothing new except he is covered in blood, and for once, most of it isn’t hers.
Sakura is eleven when she sees fear flash across her “teachers” eyes for the first time.
She is eleven when she almost dies for the first time.
Sakura was eleven the last time she listened to the voice.
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Sensei has been pushing Sakura towards Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, and Asahi Imai. She is twelve now and the exam is in two weeks. She doesn’t understand why he keeps partnering her up with them or why he gets so frustrated when she continues to follow the rules.
She doesn’t understand Naruto and she doesn’t understand Sasuke, but compared to them Asahi doesn’t really stand out.
Naruto never seems to notice the animosity shot at him by the village. He is loud and brash and asks a million questions but never seems to get one correct. Sakura thinks he spends more time getting in trouble than he does sitting in his seat and it confuses her to no end why he doesn’t stop. Maybe he doesn’t get punished because he is an orphan?
For some reason she envies him.
The weirdest thing is every once in a while he will give her a voucher to a ramen bar just down the road, They’ll go there and eat in silence while Sakura is on the way to the library. She thinks he might be the closest thing she has to another friend.
Sasuke is a different kind of weird. He talks but never in a language that others understand. His clan probably would know what every “hn” means but they are gone by the time she was eight. (This time her envy sends painful stabs through her heart, this isn’t something she should be jealous of). All the other girls in the class fawn over him and Sakura joins in but whenever class stops so does she. One day, she miraculously sat next to him. Halfway through the lecture he turned to her and said, “You’re different from the others, you don’t try to talk to me. You’re okay”. And then turned right back around.
He’s discreetly made sure she or another boy sits next to him every class ever since.
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Sakura graduates when she is twelve.
When she tells her parents they sneer at her and turn away. Instead of ending their training, Kuragari and the clan elders extend it.
Sakura is twelve and she is on a team with her two enigma’s, Naruto and Sasuke. To wrap it up their sensei is somehow worse. When they sit on a roof he asks the trio for their likes, hobbies, and dreams and Sakura comes second.
“I like… ,em>reading about medical ninjutsu and chakra… reading. I don’t like… blows rain down, blood stains the floor beneath her, she opens her mouth and emits a pained scream… a lot of stuff. My hobbies are… did she have any hobbies?... going to the library and my dream is…”
power
to not be in pain, to control my own life, to stand over the bodies of my enemies and feel strong
"...to become a great shinobi”. She takes pride in the fact that her answer is the only one their new sensei smiles at.
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Kakashi-Sensei told them not to eat before their test. This is not a problem for Sakura since her parents have stopped giving her food in the morning. She has always been required to attend every meal, but now, she is only permitted to eat at lunch. This new rule appeared after she informed the Haruno clan head that she would be stopping her training sessions as soon as she passed the final test. And yes she knew about the final test, Kuragari had told her about it when she announced she passed. His response had been an extra hour and to tell her she would never become a genin. According to shinobi law, the Haruno clan can no longer dictate her life as soon as her name was written in the genin logs.
Sakura was at breakfast now, sitting across from her mother with an empty plate and her hands resting in her lap. Out of the corner of her eye she kept glancing at the clock. Sensei had been very particular about the time, she couldn’t afford to be late but her father hadn’t finished yet. She looked at it again.
“Have somewhere to be?” Her mother asked.
“No ma'am,” Sakura answered. If she told the truth, her father might slow down even more. Her mother huffed and regarded Sakura with a look of annoyance.
“We will be meeting the Kazuo family in two months. I hope you haven’t forgotten”. Her fists tightened in her lap but she shook her head.
“No, ma’am. I have not forgotten”. The Kazuo’s were the family that Sakura would be married into once she turned thirteen. That is, if she didn’t pass the test today.
A quick glance at the clock.
The test that started in less than an hour.
Hurry up
Her dad set down his fork. “Listen to your mother, girl. The Kazuo’s are a very prestigious family. This connection with them is important to the Haruno clan in maintaining our connections and trade deals. We will not accept failure”. Failure meant Sakura denying the marriage contract. It meant Sakura fulfilling her dreams. But she would not tell her father this, not now when he was so close to finishing.
That asshole
“Yes, sir”
Within twenty minutes Sakura was out the door with Inner screaming in her ear.
She would make it.
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Only two people would pass.
Only two of them would become genin.
She quickly felt her confidence failing her.
Kill him, show him how powerful you are
She hears the switch as it moves through the air. The sound it makes when it hits flesh is accompanied by her own whimper.
A hand pulls her up by her hair.
At five the patriarch and matriarch of the Kazuo clan stare down at her, their sixteen year old son only looks at her parents. “The pink hair, do you know if it is dominant or recessive? I would hate for my children to inherit that”
Kuragari’s fist slams into her stomach, bile spills onto the mat.
“Honestly Sakura, don’t you think you’ve had enough” her mother takes the half-eaten plate from the table, Sakura’s stomach growls.
Laying on the floor Sakura distantly wonders if her fingers are supposed to be pointing in different directions like that. She doesn’t have much time to think before the hits rain down.
Make them fear us
Sakura takes a deep breath and Inner slides into place right beside her, their minds synching.
No one wil hold us back
Maybe, if anyone was looking her way they would have noticed her normal light green eyes darken a few shades.
As soon as he yells “start” Sakura disappears. They move to the trees, carefully concealing their chakra. At the same time, through Inner’s half of the mind, she creates a clone with its chakra badly suppressed and sends it across the clearing. Inside their mind they send a silent thanks to Naruto for being such an idiot.
Sakura moves underground. She’d always been better at earth jutsu but this was still hard, they had to rely on the sounds of fighting and the vibrations it created to get in place. They closed her eyes, listening, waiting…
The slight jingle of bells, the slight shifting of the ground and…
They shot their hand up, reaching through the dirt for the bells that lay on his waist. She could feel the cool metal brush the tips of her fingers, and felt how smooth and light it was.
She also felt it when they disappeared out of reach.
She cursed.
That was advanced for a genin, if this was really a test examining their skill, that should have been enough.
They retreated for now to wait.
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She was in the woods when Kuragari found her. The test wasn’t over yet but she wasn’t surprised he was there to mess it up. They probably shouldn’t have skipped so many lessons, he would make sure they failed.
As soon as he stepped out of the shadows she was at attention. Hands clasped behind her back, shoulders high, feet apart, chin up but eyes down.
It was the rules that saved her, that last part.
The grass isn’t bending
With a shaky “Kai!” he was gone and she fell to the ground.
A genjutsu. Her possible sensei had put her in a genjutsu. Her mind split.
Kill him
Well that sounded a bit like an overreaction.
But she still wanted to hurt him.
She found Sasuke in the ground with only his head sticking up. Neither of them said anything when she spotted him and neither of them said anything when she dug him out.
She wondered what Sasuke would see if he was put under a genjutsu.
There’s a reason it was you and not him, idiot.
Right, the massacre.
Kakashi probably thought she was a regular civilian
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Naruto is tied to a post and Inner is screaming at her to attack, to grab the bells even though Kakashi had already announced their failure. She can’t move though, her one chance, her one chance was gone. It was all Inner could do to keep her chakra from lashing out, she couldn’t hurt Naruto or Sasuke. She couldn’t make this any worse than it already was.
We’ll run away, out of the village.
She felt tears prickle at the corners of her vision, no she didn’t want to leave.
And then Kakashi gave them another chance. A chance Sakura wasn’t going to waste.
It should’ve been easy. Don’t feed Naruto. That’s all she had to do and then they would be given the opportunity to get the bells again. That’s all she had to do, nothing, it didn’t even require her moving.
But she could hear his stomach grumbling, like her he had probably skipped breakfast too. She knew what it was like to be hungry, she knew what it was like to curl up in pain outside her parents home begging to be let in, to have just an apple, anything. Before she knew it her chopsticks were in his mouth, his eyes wide with surprise.
It was honestly a miracle he didn’t choke.
Idiot!
Only a second after Sakura had removed her chopsticks (probably in shock) Sasuke gave a dramatic sigh and held a piece of chicken out in front of Naruto. “You’re gonna slow us down even more if you’re hungry”. Naruto’s eyes watered and he looked at them with such admiration you would have thought they’d given him a puppy. Sakura straightened her spine and sat up taller. Okay, they were gonna break the rules. Their only hope was if they could feed Naruto fast enough.
Her chopsticks picked up some of the vegetables.
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They passed. All three of them. Their new Sensei had gone on about some sort of logical ruse but Sakura hadn’t listened.
She passed.
She was legally an adult.
She passed
She started walking home in a daze. Kakashi had instructed them to return to the same area the next day (and to eat breakfast) and then left. She thinks Naruto may have suggested something about Ramen because on either side of her stood her teammates. Did they get Ramen? She couldn’t remember. They went their separate ways at an intersection.
As soon as the boys disappeared from her sight Sakura turned around and walked in the other direction towards the records building.
Sakura was twelve when she took her own life in her hands.