Not sure why I think it's a good idea to start toying with something else when I recently started a massive project, but whatever.
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On the eighteenth page of the cute pink notebook her father bought her to celebrate her admission to the Hidden Leaf's ninja academy, Haruno Sakura kept a short list of the most important rules she learned in her time there. After she'd passed her first cryptography class, she had erased it and rewritten it in a simple cipher she devised herself - she hoped more than enough to keep it safe from the prying eyes of her classmates. By the time she graduated, there were only five entries on the list.
The first lesson Sakura had marked in her notebook was one she started to learn on the first day of classes in her first year: "Never draw attention to yourself." That lesson was learned in public humiliation, the first and last time she had dared to answer a question not specifically asked of her. The weeks before she had started attending classes, she had poured over the textbooks her father had bought, reading them over and over until she'd felt she'd almost memorized them.
When a teacher seeking to impress the new students with how much they had to learn had asked a question about the basic principles behind explosive seals, Sakura had raised her hand and answered without being called on. That had lead to a stern warning not to speak without permission, followed by an intense interrogation on sealing techniques that quickly left the contents of the first year textbooks behind and had left her in tears. It took only a few similar incidents over the next weeks to secure that lesson as one she would never forget.
That was why, on the day of the final graduation exam, Sakura slipped into her classroom a few minutes before class was to start and took the empty seat in the back near the door, next to Nara Shikamaru. Before the first class of the year, he'd moved away once she was seated, but the next day he had apparently decided sitting next to her was less of a pain than sitting closer to the teachers. So long as she didn't bother him, he didn't bother her, and he'd even shared his rather thin notes without being asked when she'd missed class on the tenth of October. That made him one of the closest things she had to a friend in her class.
Sakura gave a longing glance several rows toward the front of the classroom, where the two rivals for the title of top kunoichi - Ino and Ami - were feuding over who would take the prized seat next to Uchiha Sasuke. The object of their attentions kept up his facade of stoic indifference, but Sakura imagined that underneath that was a boiling cauldron of passion, just waiting for the right woman to unlock it. A slight smile worked its way onto her face as she studied him from afar. Another page in her notebook had once been dedicated to him, but after a close call the horror of Ami or Ino discovering that had forced her to destroy that page. Those fantasies were best kept inside her head. And maybe once they graduated, if they were placed on the same team... if she could just talk to him without braving the gauntlet of the other girls... maybe, maybe then they could exist in reality.
Her face hardened as the classroom door open and a very different boy raced through the door and down to his customary seat on the first row. He was the subject of the second rule on her list, one that had been a direct order from her father. She was an obedient child by nature, and her father rarely raised his voice to her. When he had told her to never have anything to do with Uzumaki Naruto was one of those few times.
The incident had occurred the second week of classes in her first year. Naruto - at that point she had only known him as the loud blond kid who always sat in the front - had come up to her when she'd been been eating her lunch alone, dragging behind him a silver-eyed girl that Sakura hadn't even noticed was in their class. They'd talked for a little bit, although the other girl - Hinata - had stayed mostly silent.
Now, almost four years later, Sakura didn't remember what the conversation had involved. She remembered being excited about making her first friends, thrilled that maybe the outcast status she'd gained after her humiliating experience on the first day was lifting. Naruto had been even more excited the next day, when he'd rushed over to her before classes began, words tripping over themselves as he said that his mother wanted him to invite her over after classes. Why this so enthused him, Sakura still didn't know.
Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she'd just gone with him, but she had been better trained than that. She'd promised to ask her father for permission to go the next afternoon. His reaction had been unexpected, and she could remember his words as clearly as if he was saying them today.
"Absolutely not," her father had told her. "That... that boy and his mother, are the reason your mother is dead. What the Uzumaki have done to us, done to you, can never be forgiven!"
"Why?" Sakura had asked, tears in her eyes. "What did they do?"
"I can't tell you," her father had said, his voice turning gentle. "You don't need that burden yet, or ever." Then he had given her the order that became Sakura's second rule.
She had obeyed of course, doing her best to ignore the boy's questions over the next few days. When Hinata had asked Sakura why she was ignoring Naruto - the first time and the last time the other girl had started a conversation with Sakura on her own - she had explained her father's command.
The next week, Sakura was moved to another class section. She wouldn't have classes with Naruto again until her final year in the academy, when only one section was left. She was in the same class as Hinata again the next year, but her one effort to talk with the other girl was coldly and firmly rebuffed. So long as Sakura wouldn't speak with Naruto, Hinata had explained, she wouldn't have anything to do with Sakura.
The next two rules on Sakura's short list came from October 10th of that year. The year before, she had been sick with the flu on that date. This year, her father was away on a mission - one of the first times in her young memory that he was gone for multiple days. He had been supposed to return the day before, but had been delayed.
While her father was gone, a teacher for one of the older classes who lived nearby walked her to school instead. Sakura realized this was unusual. On that day, while they'd been heading to attend the half-day of classes prior to festival celebrating the Fourth Hokage's final victory, she had asked the silver-haired man why he was doing that for her. He had smiled - actually smiled - at her, and explained that he had been her father's teammate as a genin. That had been enough to put an unfamiliar bounce in her step.
That had vanished when they had reached the academy and found a large group of adults arguing with another teacher. "What's the issue, Iruka-sensei?" Sakura's escort had asked as they drew near.
The scarred teacher gave Sakura a look she still couldn't interpret, even though it remained clear in her memories. "These... men and women, have a complaint for the teaching staff, Mizuki-sensei. Send her inside and we'll discuss it."
Before he could answer, though, one of the women spoke. "Even if our request is rejected, today of all days our children shouldn't have to be with her. It's abhorrent for her to be part of this day."
"Sakura-chan is a student of the Leaf's ninja academy," Mizuki had said firmly. "You have no right to deny her that."
"Look," one of the men had said. "There's an easy way to solve this." Sakura hadn't known to call what she felt killing intent yet. She'd fallen to her knees, paralyzed in terror. "If the girl's in the hospital, she can't attend classes."
There had been a blur of motion, and then Mizuki was in front her, catching a kunai strike in his bare hand. She remembered the blood dripping from his palm, fascinating her so much that she barely recalled the other adults wrestling the attacker to the ground, or the scarred teacher angrily ordering someone to fetch ANBU.
Later, in the academy infirmary, as she'd watched Mizuki bandage his hand, she'd tearfully asked, "Why?" Why had those parents hated her so? Why had this teacher who she didn't know let himself be hurt to save her?
He'd smiled again, and answered her second unspoken question. She remembered the words perfectly. "Takeru is my precious comrade, and you are his precious daughter. That makes you precious to me, also. This," he'd said, gesturing at his injured palm, "is nothing, if it means protecting my precious people. For my precious people, I would do anything." His smiled faded slightly. "Anything at all. That's my way of the ninja."
Then he'd reached out and ruffled her hair fondly. "I hear you aren't doing very well in your classes this year, Sakura-chan. I want you to study hard and do better, so in a couple years you can be my most wonderful student. All right?"
An hour later, her father had returned and pulled her from class. That evening, Sakura added two more rules to her list. The third rule came from her father again, that she was never to leave home on October 10th. The fourth was her own rule, that she would always protect her precious people as best she could, even if there were only two people she could call precious in the world.
The fifth rule on her list, she would not add until this evening, after she discovered the truth about herself.
--------------------
This came about because I reread Avaryan's <a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3140845/1/Soul_Voice' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Soul Voice</a>, and started wondering whether the idea of an alternate Kyuubi jinchuuriki could be made to work with something approximating current canon. (Although I don't intend to let small details get in the way of a better story, I also don't intend to be as wildly AU as One Hundred Weeks.)
Then that merged with some old ideas on the Kyuubi!Sakura genre I'd had back in the day, and some other things I wanted to try (like a more sympathetic Mizuki), and so... this.
--------------------
On the eighteenth page of the cute pink notebook her father bought her to celebrate her admission to the Hidden Leaf's ninja academy, Haruno Sakura kept a short list of the most important rules she learned in her time there. After she'd passed her first cryptography class, she had erased it and rewritten it in a simple cipher she devised herself - she hoped more than enough to keep it safe from the prying eyes of her classmates. By the time she graduated, there were only five entries on the list.
The first lesson Sakura had marked in her notebook was one she started to learn on the first day of classes in her first year: "Never draw attention to yourself." That lesson was learned in public humiliation, the first and last time she had dared to answer a question not specifically asked of her. The weeks before she had started attending classes, she had poured over the textbooks her father had bought, reading them over and over until she'd felt she'd almost memorized them.
When a teacher seeking to impress the new students with how much they had to learn had asked a question about the basic principles behind explosive seals, Sakura had raised her hand and answered without being called on. That had lead to a stern warning not to speak without permission, followed by an intense interrogation on sealing techniques that quickly left the contents of the first year textbooks behind and had left her in tears. It took only a few similar incidents over the next weeks to secure that lesson as one she would never forget.
That was why, on the day of the final graduation exam, Sakura slipped into her classroom a few minutes before class was to start and took the empty seat in the back near the door, next to Nara Shikamaru. Before the first class of the year, he'd moved away once she was seated, but the next day he had apparently decided sitting next to her was less of a pain than sitting closer to the teachers. So long as she didn't bother him, he didn't bother her, and he'd even shared his rather thin notes without being asked when she'd missed class on the tenth of October. That made him one of the closest things she had to a friend in her class.
Sakura gave a longing glance several rows toward the front of the classroom, where the two rivals for the title of top kunoichi - Ino and Ami - were feuding over who would take the prized seat next to Uchiha Sasuke. The object of their attentions kept up his facade of stoic indifference, but Sakura imagined that underneath that was a boiling cauldron of passion, just waiting for the right woman to unlock it. A slight smile worked its way onto her face as she studied him from afar. Another page in her notebook had once been dedicated to him, but after a close call the horror of Ami or Ino discovering that had forced her to destroy that page. Those fantasies were best kept inside her head. And maybe once they graduated, if they were placed on the same team... if she could just talk to him without braving the gauntlet of the other girls... maybe, maybe then they could exist in reality.
Her face hardened as the classroom door open and a very different boy raced through the door and down to his customary seat on the first row. He was the subject of the second rule on her list, one that had been a direct order from her father. She was an obedient child by nature, and her father rarely raised his voice to her. When he had told her to never have anything to do with Uzumaki Naruto was one of those few times.
The incident had occurred the second week of classes in her first year. Naruto - at that point she had only known him as the loud blond kid who always sat in the front - had come up to her when she'd been been eating her lunch alone, dragging behind him a silver-eyed girl that Sakura hadn't even noticed was in their class. They'd talked for a little bit, although the other girl - Hinata - had stayed mostly silent.
Now, almost four years later, Sakura didn't remember what the conversation had involved. She remembered being excited about making her first friends, thrilled that maybe the outcast status she'd gained after her humiliating experience on the first day was lifting. Naruto had been even more excited the next day, when he'd rushed over to her before classes began, words tripping over themselves as he said that his mother wanted him to invite her over after classes. Why this so enthused him, Sakura still didn't know.
Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she'd just gone with him, but she had been better trained than that. She'd promised to ask her father for permission to go the next afternoon. His reaction had been unexpected, and she could remember his words as clearly as if he was saying them today.
"Absolutely not," her father had told her. "That... that boy and his mother, are the reason your mother is dead. What the Uzumaki have done to us, done to you, can never be forgiven!"
"Why?" Sakura had asked, tears in her eyes. "What did they do?"
"I can't tell you," her father had said, his voice turning gentle. "You don't need that burden yet, or ever." Then he had given her the order that became Sakura's second rule.
She had obeyed of course, doing her best to ignore the boy's questions over the next few days. When Hinata had asked Sakura why she was ignoring Naruto - the first time and the last time the other girl had started a conversation with Sakura on her own - she had explained her father's command.
The next week, Sakura was moved to another class section. She wouldn't have classes with Naruto again until her final year in the academy, when only one section was left. She was in the same class as Hinata again the next year, but her one effort to talk with the other girl was coldly and firmly rebuffed. So long as Sakura wouldn't speak with Naruto, Hinata had explained, she wouldn't have anything to do with Sakura.
The next two rules on Sakura's short list came from October 10th of that year. The year before, she had been sick with the flu on that date. This year, her father was away on a mission - one of the first times in her young memory that he was gone for multiple days. He had been supposed to return the day before, but had been delayed.
While her father was gone, a teacher for one of the older classes who lived nearby walked her to school instead. Sakura realized this was unusual. On that day, while they'd been heading to attend the half-day of classes prior to festival celebrating the Fourth Hokage's final victory, she had asked the silver-haired man why he was doing that for her. He had smiled - actually smiled - at her, and explained that he had been her father's teammate as a genin. That had been enough to put an unfamiliar bounce in her step.
That had vanished when they had reached the academy and found a large group of adults arguing with another teacher. "What's the issue, Iruka-sensei?" Sakura's escort had asked as they drew near.
The scarred teacher gave Sakura a look she still couldn't interpret, even though it remained clear in her memories. "These... men and women, have a complaint for the teaching staff, Mizuki-sensei. Send her inside and we'll discuss it."
Before he could answer, though, one of the women spoke. "Even if our request is rejected, today of all days our children shouldn't have to be with her. It's abhorrent for her to be part of this day."
"Sakura-chan is a student of the Leaf's ninja academy," Mizuki had said firmly. "You have no right to deny her that."
"Look," one of the men had said. "There's an easy way to solve this." Sakura hadn't known to call what she felt killing intent yet. She'd fallen to her knees, paralyzed in terror. "If the girl's in the hospital, she can't attend classes."
There had been a blur of motion, and then Mizuki was in front her, catching a kunai strike in his bare hand. She remembered the blood dripping from his palm, fascinating her so much that she barely recalled the other adults wrestling the attacker to the ground, or the scarred teacher angrily ordering someone to fetch ANBU.
Later, in the academy infirmary, as she'd watched Mizuki bandage his hand, she'd tearfully asked, "Why?" Why had those parents hated her so? Why had this teacher who she didn't know let himself be hurt to save her?
He'd smiled again, and answered her second unspoken question. She remembered the words perfectly. "Takeru is my precious comrade, and you are his precious daughter. That makes you precious to me, also. This," he'd said, gesturing at his injured palm, "is nothing, if it means protecting my precious people. For my precious people, I would do anything." His smiled faded slightly. "Anything at all. That's my way of the ninja."
Then he'd reached out and ruffled her hair fondly. "I hear you aren't doing very well in your classes this year, Sakura-chan. I want you to study hard and do better, so in a couple years you can be my most wonderful student. All right?"
An hour later, her father had returned and pulled her from class. That evening, Sakura added two more rules to her list. The third rule came from her father again, that she was never to leave home on October 10th. The fourth was her own rule, that she would always protect her precious people as best she could, even if there were only two people she could call precious in the world.
The fifth rule on her list, she would not add until this evening, after she discovered the truth about herself.
--------------------
This came about because I reread Avaryan's <a href='http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3140845/1/Soul_Voice' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Soul Voice</a>, and started wondering whether the idea of an alternate Kyuubi jinchuuriki could be made to work with something approximating current canon. (Although I don't intend to let small details get in the way of a better story, I also don't intend to be as wildly AU as One Hundred Weeks.)
Then that merged with some old ideas on the Kyuubi!Sakura genre I'd had back in the day, and some other things I wanted to try (like a more sympathetic Mizuki), and so... this.
