Chapter Text
i.
It wasn't so bad.
Jujutsu Sorcerers were meant to die early, anyway, and Kugisaki Nobara is no foreign example of that. She dies at the age of sixteen, in the midst of a war in Shibuya. Her only regret is not embracing Saori one more time. Or not asking for more training with Maki-san. Maybe, Panda-senpai too. She also deeply regrets not hitting Inumaki-senpai more for the whole debacle with the skirt, and in relation to that, Gojou-sensei too, but for him, Nobara wishes she milked his money even more. He was ready to spend any amount of money for his students, after all. Ah. She should have socked those Kyoto students in the face just one last time, especially Maki-san's younger twin sister. She also really wants to apologize to Yaga-sensei for being a handful along with the other first years—ah. Them.
Maybe Nobara has more regrets than she had originally thought. But really, it wasn't so bad. Jujutsu Sorcerers were meant to die early anyway. Kugisaki Nobara is just one of the many sorcerers who died early. She has always known that Tokyo will be a lot more dangerous than Kyoto or back in her hometown. So it wasn't so bad. It sucks that she could not drag Itadori and Fushiguro to the middle of Shibuya to shop around anymore, though. It sucks that she would not wake up with loud bangs on her window to see the two of them waiting, clad in their uniform and screaming about a new mission. It—it sucks that she would not wake up anymore, in a couch, leaning against one or two of them. It sucks that she could not tease Fushiguro anymore with Itadori. It sucks that she could not be the country bumpkin who knows nothing about Tokyo with Itadori while Fushiguro pretends he wants nothing to do with them. It really, really sucks. So maybe, just maybe (Nobara will never admit it since she lives in the moment and never regrets anything and regretting means making mistakes and Nobara rarely makes mistakes so no she will never admit to it, even after her deathbed, even when she sees the terror in Itadori's eyes and even as she wonders what kind of face Fushiguro will make) she regrets a lot more than she had originally claimed.
It really, really, really, really was not so bad. It could have been worse. A lot worse. Jujutsu Sorcerers were meant to die early anyway. Kugisaki Nobara is no different.
But Nobara is different. because every time she faces the mirror, she expects to see the damp color of her dye, one she had done at home and then followed up by a salon. She expects to see a faded scar on her arm from piercing herself with nails due to the fight with the Cursed Brothers. She expects to see down-turned eyes but furrowed eyebrows. She expects to see dark, dark eyes, and she expects something else each time she faces the mirror. But she is welcomed by something different instead. Each and every time, she is welcomed by vibrant pink and green eyes so deep it resembles Fushiguro's. And she hates it.
(The audacity of this world to give her Fushiguro's eyes and Itadori's hair—Nobara is left with nothing but memories of what-could-have-been, and she has never felt more alone.)
She does not think this is her, even when she has been living in this body since she was two years old. She is Kugisaki Nobara, not some pipsqueak named Sakura—and she gets the pattern of having flower names, she does. But Nobara is Nobara, wild roses blooming in a field, and not Sakura. She is not a fragile name. She was meant to have thorns. To have nails poking out of her skin, and Itadori can joke about her resembling a hedgehog all he wants but Nobara is Nobara and she refuses to be anyone but Nobara.
She forcefully maintains her hair style as Nobara (because who is she if not Nobara), tugging her bangs to her right side and keeping her hair right above her shoulders. Sakura's mother compliments her on it, of course she does! Nobara thinks she looks best in this hair style no matter what anyone says; she always looks prim and proper, a lady, just like her grandmother always said. Just like Saori always said. But even if her coloring changes, even if her appearance changes, even if the family she lives with changes, some things will always stay the same.
Nobara is four years old when the sun blinds her as she walks in the streets of this strange village. She puts a hand above her head, wincing when it proves to be useless. But as she refocuses, the mountains that sit beyond the largest building in the village hovers above her intimidatingly, as if watching her every move. There are four faces that sit upon the rocks, unfamiliar ones that tell her this is not Japan even if they speak Japanese. Her thoughts struggle to sink in; she is four years old and she is not in Japan, but her pink hair settles as familiarly as she remembers, and nothing really changes.
Nobara is four when she lists down all of her complaints about this place she got reincarnated in (for a moment, she remembers, she had been relatively curious: 'is she in the edo period with Oda Nobunaga' but she immediately shuts up when a man in an unfashionable uniform hops from the skies and lands on her balcony—what?): the internet does not exist, the technology is very outdated, the place is too small, and Nobara is destined to be a child soldier. (Some things never change.) Nobara is four when she grimaces at a walking passerby. Her hands are too busy playing cat's cradle, something her parents insisted on her to do but she fumbles with it a little too badly. Her control over her limbs truly resemble that of a child's. (Nobara used to find her amusement in Itadori fumbling over his fingers in playing cat's cradle during their spare time, and she one-sidedly butted heads with Fushiguro who mimicked her expert maneuvering. Gojō-sensei fondly looked from afar.) The passerby, however, catches her disgusted look and raises both of his eyebrows in speculation, eyes in crescents and mouth up in a smile.
Nobara is four when she criticizes their uniform only to be rebuked: it's practical when fighting, he said, especially in the forest. You'll know when you get older. You're Mebuki's kid, aren't you? Nobara is four when it sinks in.
This body was born to become an offering to the village, similar to how Nobara was born to be a Jujutsu Sorcerer. When she comes upon the realization that things never changed in the first place (it wasn't so bad)—she itches for the familiarity, for the feeling of her hammer and nails in her palms, her wrists flexing to smash it against a head, and the thrilling feeling of pain throbbing all over her body. Nobara is four when she first hunts for her Cursed Spirits and finds nothing. She searches for her Cursed Energy and finds a faint throb.
And then, comes Chakra.
ii.
The library permits only a specific level for a 'civilian' child like Nobara and while she is not very fond of studying, it is all she can rely on as a four-year-old. Unsurprisingly, under that 'civilian' category she has at the moment, all she can get are fantasies about this world's version of soliders, shinobi—she resists the urge to laugh. She remembers playing pretend as a child and remembers beating down her classmates in elementary school as the 'bad shinobi' who betrayed the 'good shinobi', until all of those died down and she got stuck to simply beating up her classmates instead. But apparently, shinobi are real in this world and it is Nobara who is weird for finding something amusing in these people who kill for a living, glorified mercenaries who 'work for the betterment of the village' when even Nobara can see that all this place is, is a military dictatorship by the strongest man in the village, he who calls himself Hokage who puts himself in the façade of a kind old man.
The Hokage does monthly speeches for the people on the first day of the month and Nobara has a hound's nose when it comes to smelling utter bullshit and she concludes that the Hokage's speech is, as bluntly as possible, utter bullshit.
He talks monthly about how well the civilians and the shinobi are working together to maintain the peace within the village, that the village is like this thanks to the relationship between the two 'factions' that he calls the 'PILLARS' of the village, the civilians and the shinobi. He adds that the Will of Fire burns brightly in every citizen of Konohagakure no Sato, from the peddlers to the Academy Instructors, from the shinobi and to each child that walks on the paved floors of their 'home'. Nobara has to admit. The Hokage is charismatic and his power and appearance only add to the need for trusting him, relying on him, believing in his words. Sadly for them, her grandmother, before sending her off to Tokyo, drilled her about the Cultists that might come for a 'vulnerable pretty girl' like her so Nobara, with a hound's nose and with the teachings of her dear Grandmother, scoffs internally at the image of the Hokage. To say that Cultists are common in Tokyo is an understatement, and Shibuya is pretty worse in that aspect.
But Nobara also falls for the speech. In a way.
Because while she has no plans on being blindly loyal to the village and also has no plans on staying in this place forever, Nobara revels in danger. She relishes in risking her life and thrumming in the heat of her Cursed Energy, and she adores letting herself run wild. And if she does not become a shinobi, then she has no chances in getting a single clue about chakra, which, in the eyes of the civilians, are nothing but 'shinobi magic'. Hogging all the information to themselves is a clever ploy but admittedly, an old one that is stuck in nothing but history books in Nobara's original world.
Education is not normalized in Konoha. For civilians, those who receive formal education in Academies are the upper-class people only while middle to lower class settle in apprenticeships, pushing them in a single role and even apprenticeships are rather complicated. A master cannot just accept an apprentice without a recommendation, or probably a close relation to the student. And getting another master for another job is usually never seen through because why get another apprenticeship when you already have one in the first place? For civilians, it is quite simple: get an apprenticeship, inherit something, or get married off. For shinobi, however... Nobara grimaces at the difference of status.
Shinobi are required to get education and not only do they tackle farely advanced Arithmetics in class but they also get to study any topic they can get a hands on. Their libraries are more expansive, connections are forged from Academies to Genin Teams to Chūnin Teams, until you reach the peak of being a shinobi with the exception of Kage status: Jōnin.
Nobara was about to be promoted to First Grade Sorcerer before she died and she would be damned if she becomes anything but the highest rank. Sure it was rather improbable of her to have achieved Special Grade Sorcerer back then but she still tried. She was eager to reach said rank and now that this one, the Jōnin rank is more clear-sighted than Special Grade, Nobara will not stop at any rate to become nothing but the best.
(Nobara ignores this obsession to be the best. A part of her tells her that she is trying to ignore the fact that she is dead. [There is no Kugisaki Nobara in Konohagakure no Sato of the Land of Fire. But who is she if not Nobara?] That Kugisaki Nobara is dead and she is just a little girl called Haruno Sakura with pink hair [like Itadori] and green eyes [like Fushiguro] now. It tells her that she can never be rose-thorned Nobara anymore, not when her branches stretch to the skies and sprout the pale flowers of cherry blossoms. It tells her that she will never be Kugisaki Nobara but she spits on that and ignores it. She forces the small things that make Kugisaki Nobara 'Kugisaki Nobara' to Haruno Sakura.
She clenches her fists and Nobara ignores the problem. Because who is she if not Nobara?)
iii.
Nobara knows how strange she is to her parents when it takes her more than one call of her name to answer. She still does not feel like Sakura. She grew up (in her first life) proud of her name. Her grandmother used to run her fingers through her dark hair and say that she was as pretty as the wild roses that grew in their mountains and as deadly as its thorns, but what is Nobara supposed to do with cherry blossoms? The countryside had a lot of superstitions and even more when it came to names. Everyone discouraged names that were related to spring and 'Sakura' is one of those names. In fact, cherry blossoms are the main representation for spring. Among sorcerers and most definitely age-old Clans, spring names were associated to fleeting lives. The last 'Sakura' that Nobara knew died because of a Curse mishap so to say Nobara does not like her name is the understatement of the year.
'Sakura' represents the spring blossoms. Fickle. New beginnings. Her most disliked meaning of those pink trees, honestly. Fleeting. A blink, then everything else is gone.
And yet, the first thing she learns to write is her name. Sakura. Haruno Sakura. Wide-eyed. Wide forehead. Pink hair of all color. Daughter of a Career Genin and a Chūnin. Nobody expects much of her. All they want is for her to serve the village, probably jump to the medics since 'people like her with low chakra reserves are usually saddled there'—and fuck that. Nobara is going to choose where she is going to go, what she is going to do, and how she is going to do something, so the moment Haruno Kizashi and Haruno Mebuki drop the hint to her about medics and being a Chūnin or 'Career Genin are nothing to scoff at too, Sakura-chan', Nobara lets her temper rise and she announces that she will be a Jōnin or be nothing at all! A front-liner even because that was what Nobara was and will always be! Her parents smile at her indulgently. Nobara scoffs.
And the first thing Nobara does is (read: try to) revive the Kugisaki Family's traditional Straw Doll Technique because she just knows her grandmother will be shouting at her incessantly for ruining their family name as if they are something to be compared to the likes of those Zen'in misogynists and straight-haired Kamo bastards. (The Gojou Clan is an entirely different topic and Nobara prefers not to think of them. She honestlu wants to poke out their eyes, most specially her Gojou-sensei.) While the Kugisaki Family members are nothing but countryside Sorcerers in their eyes, Nobara is going to be a lot more than that.
Or so she thinks.
The Straw Doll Technique involves a couple of things with the exception of the body part of who she is going to curse: a Cursed Object in the form of a Straw Doll and her Cursed Energy. Resonance does not particularly need the Straw Doll, however, but she needs a proper proxy for said Technique and while she does not mind pain, she cannot always use herself as the proxy as she did with the Cursed Brothers. The nails can be replaced by something else and so can the hammer. The Cursed Energy is the difficult part.
Nobara stares at the skies from her backyard, legs crossed and in all her five-year-old glory. This, she thinks, is a lot harder than I thought. She cannot help but stand up and stomp on the stupid cat's cradle that this body's parents make her do. Mebuki smiles from the windows of their home, amused at her admittedly childlike antics. She scoffs and crosses her arms.
Her Cursed Energy is the most difficult part to access because technically, it is not there. What she feels when she digs into her body is chakra, as explained by Mebuki who took the role of guiding her into this 'shinobi lifestyle'. Naturally, Nobara abandons her cat's cradle in favor of running to her mother's side who did not seem to be busy. When asked about this 'chakra', Mebuki grins with all her teeth displayed: "Chakra is the energy inside you, Sakura-chan—" Nobara almostrolls her eyes. She knows that part, of course. Mebuki says some fantastical things a bit more and Nobara almost leaves until Mebuki begins talking sense. "Chakra is composed of two things, Physical Energy that comes from physical training, and Spiritual Energy that comes from experience—" A few more words and explanations, and Nobara is brightening up even more.
She speeds away with a short shout of gratitude and returns to her bedroom, decorated in faint pinks and darker pinks. Nobara does not really mind. The color is pretty and suits her well but she still prefers deeper reds, madder reds, vibrant reds. She thinks of changing the walls but that is for another day, she decides, and sinks to the floor, grabbing her notebook. While Nobara was never a fan of books, sharing her fondness with Itadori over learning through actual exercise rather than texts, she thinks this is supposed to be written down. Or, at least, scribbled and drawn.
Perhaps, the feeling that she felt when she first reached for her Cursed Energy was that—Spiritual Energy, coming from experience, wisdom, and meditation. Nobara had enough of that in her first life as that is what Cursed Energy is all about: emotions and how to control them, meditating in order to control those said emotions. Constantly and constantly training but how does Nobara make sure that she only summons the Spiritual Energy? If her understanding is correct, Cursed Energy can be some sort of variant of Spiritual Energy.
She scribbles this down on her notebook, drawing a silhouette of a person and a circle at the middle cut in half—Spiritual Energy at one side and Physical on the other. She stretches an arrow from the Spiritual Energy and writes: 'its variant can be Cursed Energy'? Satisfied with that for the day, Nobara returns downstairs to resume with her cat's cradle, thouuhts heavy with excitement for her Cursed Technique coming to life.
iv.
The Academy—she hears from her mother because she would rather someone read to her than actually read it, you know; she is much too easily-distracted for that—used to be called the 'Ninja Institute' but it intimidated the civilians too much to try to apply and Konohagakure needed more men aside from those from shinobi clans so then, the Nidaime Hokage decided to rename it to 'The Academy'.
Said Academy, during peacetime, only accepts students from aged six and above for their first year while during wartimes, the minimum age is four. (Something nice to take note of: roughly two years before the Second Shinobi War began, Namikaze Minato or also known as the Yondaime Hokage, entered the Academy at nine years old—something not really strange back in the day as civilians tend to come and go—and graduated in under a year, ten years old under the tutelage and apprenticeship of one of the Sandaime Hokage's students, Jiraiya of the Sannin, surname unknown. Mebuki is such a gossip that she lets it slip that some people think of him as a Hatake or a Senju because of his white hair.) It is expected of Nobara to enter at the age of six and she does, now boredly looking at the speech that the Sandaime Hokage is giving them, the same old Will of Fire bullshit that manages to stir up the dreams and the sparkles in the eyes of the kids around her.
Ugh, Nobara thinks. She hates kids.
Somehow, they used to find her intimidating despite her dashing good looks! Itadori was much better in handling them in the few times they ended up in playgrounds, waiting for nighttime to come for the next Cursed Spirits hunt. Fushiguro just ignored them when Nobara picked fights with kids. "Immature like you two," he would say, and Nobara and Itadori would then come up with a plan to sic the kids on Fushiguro. Nine times out of ten, it was effective.
When her name is called to introduce herself, that is only when she notices how many clan children are around her. She already hates it here. The only reason she got along immediately with Fushiguro despite his glaring Zen'in looks is because his surname is that, Fushiguro, and anyone who marries a Zen'in, whether you are a man or a woman, gets the surname because a Zen'in is always better than some common nobody. And the reason why she got along well with Maki-san is, well, because it is Maki-san! Nobara's favorite senpai. Not like Panda-senpai and Inumaki-senpai can compare with how much they tolerate Gojou-sensei's antics and yes, Nobara still has not forgiven them for the skirt incident.
She hates clan kids. (She considers that Inumaki-senpai is from a clan too but he's different, she insists to herself. She dislikes the Zen'in and the Kamo the most. She barely hears anything about the Gojou Clan now, aside from Gojou-sensei, but Gojou-sensei is enough of a representative.) And now, she is surrounded by them! She feels like she is cornered by a bunch of Zen'in Mais and Kamo Noritoshis. Annoying. She lifts her head and shows the piece of paper given by them, showing their name. "Haruno Sakura. Nice to meet you," she announces.
Iruka-sensei, a Chūnin who looks a little too much like someone from the Nara Clan, smiles indulgently at her like he does with the rest of the students. "Thank you, Sakura-chan," Nobara barely registers it as her name, "Next, please."
Nobara sits back down, frown deep but nothing that can be taken seriously in the face of a child.
Her seatmate is a third-generation shinobi like her. Somehow, the class managed to arrange themselves like that—the non-clan kids with shinobi background are huddled in a corner (Nobara is with them), the clan kids are on another, the civilians are nearest to Iruka-sensei, and the orphans are at the farthest back, clothes shabby and hand-me-downs. And once the introductions are over, Nobara is in shock. There are literally five clan heirs in her year: Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata. Do not even get Nobara started on the Uchiha and Inuzuka spares.
She slouches, her seatmate, whose name she never bothered to listen to, mirrors her displeasure. "It's hard to get good scores with these guys around," her seatmate grumbles. When Nobara keeps silent, he glances back at her, as if expecting a reply. "Aren't you annoyed?" His eyes are focused more on her hair than her face.
"At you? Definitely," Nobara scoffs.
"What did you just say?!"
And that is how Nobara, twenty-three minutes into her first class in the Academy, gets into a fight. (She obviously won the fight, of course.) Later that day, she learns her seatmate's name is Hibachi.
v.
The Academy curriculum states that the first two months of the first year will have them tackling the theories of everything, the basics of the basics along with basic stamina build-up and obstacle courses. The rest of the months are about the kata and at the end of the year, how to properly hold and handle kunai. Apparently, the second years and above are the ones who can actually use the kunai. She has a total of six years in the Academy. Six years at most, she would have said a year or two ago, but early graduation is greatly discouraged in peacetime so Nobara is definitely going to spend six years in the Academy no matter how well she does. Speaking of how well she does, Nobara greatly enjoysbeating the clan kids a lot—she scraps away Shikamaru, Chouji, Hinata, Ino; some of them having no interest in doing better or just cannot do better (Nobara genuinely wonders why Hinata is not doing as good as she is supposed to when she is clearly the heir of the noble Hyuuga Clan).
The person she adores to beat is Uchiha Sasuke.
Races are one thing—Nobara was never the fastest, not in this life or that life.
Strength is one thing too—Nobara may have been called a brute and a gorilla by her elementary schoolmates but compared to Itadori and Fushiguro, her strength she is feeble.
But obstacle courses is another.
Nobara is light and as someone who fights from long-ranged, she needs to move in sleek motions and past certain spots. Being a Sorcerer also means chasing and tracking Curses, something she is good at, so speeding through the Obstacle Course is easy. Nobara may not be fast but she is mindful of her steps. And on the third week of the month, Nobara grins at Uchiha Sasuke, having won against him for the first time in the Obstacle Course and his face is so satisfying to look at—that crumpled expression and deep frown—Nobara loves pissing people off! Gojou-sensei even praised her a handful of times for her ability to rile them up, something that Fushiguro even begrudgingly admitted as very useful while Itadori does not see the point of it.
And with Nobara steady in the physical exercises and practical tests, she becomes satisfied. What she is not satisfied of, however, is the lack of chakra in their discussions and practices. All they are talking about is theory after theory, how to punch, how to kick, how to make sure your kunai pierces the sternum and gets to the heart, how to know which are the arteries and which parts are just fat, which parts hurt the most—no chakra.
Of course, Nobara walks up to Iruka after class to ask about this. Iruka never takes her seriously. Hibachi says it must be the hair and the wide eyes. Nobara punched him. “Sensei!” Nobara chirps but before she can even get a word out, Iruka sighs and cuts her off.
“Chakra exercises are meant for third years, Sakura-chan,” he says, as if he has been saying this for the past few days, “First year is for building your body, Second year is for weaponry, Third year is for chakra, and the last three years are for using those skills as a collective. Okay?”
Hibachi, her seatmate and her new lackey of sorts, is also her new punching bag—uh, sparring partner. He loses more times than he lands a hit and Nobara was never even good at hand-to-hand combat. She is a mid-to-long-ranged fighter at heart, after all. Today though, Hibachi manages to hit Nobara in the face. Hibachi’s lackeys (and by extension, Nobara’s) straighten up from their seats on the ground.
Hibachi gapes, surprised when Nobara stumbles back, holding her nose with the same hand she used to bruise Hibachi’s stomach just a few moments ago. “Sa—Sakura? You alright?” He asks hesitantly.
Nobara snaps her head up, glaring at him. “Do you want me to punch you in the face to see how it feels?” She hisses, waving her hand ariund to get rid of the blood that dripped from her nose. Unsatisfied, she wipes it at the bottom of her shirt.
Unagi, said lackey of Hibachi’s, snorts. “He definitely knows what it feels already.”
“Shut up, Unagi!”
Hibachi seems to know that it was a fluke. Nobara is distracted. Too distracted, and Hibachi says this just as it is. Nobara does not want to admit that her thoughts strayed but she does, sitting down beside the ragtag of lackeys and non-clan kids: Hibachi, Unagi, and Tarou. “I need to know more stuff about Spiritual Energy—you know, chakra-stuff, and we won’t be learning more about it until in third year,” Nobara grumbles, “And the libraries are useless! Everything’s restricted!”
Unagi rubs the back of his head unsurely. “Well, focusing on Spiritual Energy stuff... isn’t that a clan thing? You don’t just study just Spiritual Energy, you know,” he points out.
“Clan thing?” Nobara resounds. Well, she did hear that Spiritual Energy manipulation is heavily relied on by GenjutsuUsers and Healers. “Aren’t the Yamanaka and the Uchiha Genjutsu Specialists? And wow, Unagi, ever since you got those glasses, you became really smart, huh.”
“Oi—”
Tarou looks as if he is about to laugh. “What? You got distracted thinking ‘bout that?”
“It’s a project, okay?” Nobara raises an eyebrow, stretching her tiny legs. She lifts a hand to push away a few strands of hair from her face but stops midway. Pink hair. Right. She almost forgot. “I’m probably gon’na approach Ino—” That quickly got a grimace from Hibachi, Unagi, and Tarou. “Right. I don’t wan’na approach the Yamanakas. One word to them and it’s gossip all over the village.”
“You’re not gon’na ask the Uchiha?”
Unagi, Hibachi, and Nobara look at Tarou in disbelief for even considering that. Nobara already does not like any of the clans in Konoha and Tarou is implying that Nobara has to go to the clan that resembles the Zen’in Clan the most for help? “What?”
“Just ask Iruka-sensei, Sakura.”
“Yeah, or the Kurama we have in class.”
“Right,” Nobara mutters dryly, “Anyway, I’m not going to ask help from anyone. I can just scavenge the house for some books—” She has been doing that for ages but of course, scrolls and books are heavily monitored and none of them are in their home. Knowledge is hogged more closely than food here, after all. “And really, Tarou? Uchihas? They’re—”
“What about the Uchiha?”
Hibachi cringes when they all turn around. He grumbles something under his breath and begins standing up. He pulls both Unagi and Tarou to do the same. “It’s the Uchiha,” he says and reaches to pull on Nobara next, “Let’s go.”
Uchiha Sasuke is tall for his age, though his face is still littered with baby fat like most six-year-olds. Nobara has to admit that he has the same pretty-boy look that she was surrounded with back in Jujutsu Kōtō, but Nobara finds herself more annoyed than interested in the famous younger brother of the last student who went through the early graduation system, Uchiha Itachi. Nobara did not even know Sasuke’s name until Unagi reminded her that one time, only knowing him as the Clan Head of the Uchiha’s son, or the younger brother of that Uchiha Prodigy.
Starting a fight with a third-generation shinobi is different from starting a fight with a Clan kid, much less the spare of the Uchiha Clan Head, Nobara thinks. As much as she wants to piss Sasuke a bit more, she does not, and instead, begins to walk away with Hibachi and the others. She is not one to run away from fights but she wants nothing to do with the Uchiha Clan right now. She can get her Spiritual Chakra stuff from Iruka instead, or maybe even from the teacher next door called Mizuki. That will be a much better option than asking her peers. Well, her ‘peers’.
Sasuke, however, grabs her by her wrist. “You. What did you just say about The Clan?” His words are gritting and deep. Nobara never encountered someone so attached to their clan back in Jujutsu Kōtō. Maki-san and Fushiguro hated the Zen’in. Inumaki-senpai barely talked about his clan, and Gojou-sensei rarely shares anything about himself. Their Kyoto counterpart is the same: Mai has some grudge against the ever so misogynistic and heavily patriarchal Zen’in, though Nobars has no idea with Kamo Noritoshi. Probably the same too. All of them have blood in their hands.
Nobara rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say anything and—” She snatches her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
Sasuke can obviously her dislike for the Uchiha, and generally, the other clans. Most non-clan shinobi share the same feelings. “You said you needed something,” he trails off, “And the Uchiha have what you need. What is it?”
Oh?
Wait—
Nobara thinks and thinks.
She does not like asking for help. That was never her thing. She liked working alone. It was inly a miracle that she managed to work well with Fushiguro and Itadori but Nobara still works best on her own. But this is not ‘asking for help’, she decides. This can be something else entirely.
She grins. This is not asking for help.
She’s just going to use Sasuke for a bit.
Of course.
arc one, kuniumi ━━━ lit. “birth
and formation of a country”