Chapter Text
Haruno Mebuki thinks of herself as an ordinary, well-to-do woman with a sharp mind and a calm, idyllic life. Although there may be bumps and bruises in the path before her, and her mother and grandmother taught her to face off the world with the stubbornness to match a wild boar, nothing prepares her for motherhood.
Or, namely, her first child.
In the beginning, Mebuki and Kizashi had been over the moon with the surprise pregnancy – they’d been trying to conceive for the past several years, and had almost given up entirely by the time their little Sakura decided to make an appearance. They cleared out the guest bedroom in their flat, decorated it with a frankly obnoxious amount of pink once the doctor confirmed the baby’s gender, and crossed their fingers for a successful pregnancy. Mebuki remembers religiously downing the allotted number of folic acid supplements at exactly the suggested time every single day, her husband nagging her on from behind out of anxious worry.
It was going to be a glorious thing. All of her friends already had one or two babies, and it was nigh time that the Haruno household had some squealing, red-faced thing, too.
And when Sakura entered the world, screaming and crying and fighting, there was no other feeling in the world that could compare to the bump-bump-bump of Mebuki’s heart.
(This is a lie)
The happiness quickly fades into concern, then into fear.
Sakura is… unnatural.
Their baby girl is all pleasant smiles and appropriately placed, bluebell-chime giggles. When Obaa-san visits, the old woman pinches the baby’s cheeks, coos, and receives a cute thumb-sucking spectacle or gummy smile in return. When the neighbour visits, Sakura looks up with those bright emerald eyes, dewy like the fresh morning grass, and babbles away on the play-mat with cuddly toys and foam blocks. When Mebuki wraps her child to her front with a sling to go shopping, all the hawkers at the market wiggle their pruney fingers in hopes of catching a delighted laugh from the new baby.
But a mother knows best, they say.
It starts when she’s six months old, babbling away in the crib at night, patting the mattress and sticking chubby sausage-fingers through the bars. Mebuki makes herself hidden, quietly creeping around the dark nursery in search of some peace and quiet. Kizashi has his nights, sometimes, where his snores are louder than a volcano eruption, and during those nights, she either takes a brisk walk outside to tire herself out enough to sleep through the ruckus, or she just waits it out in another corner of the house, staring off into nothingness.
So Mebuki sits on the faded yellow beanbag in the corner of the room, drowsing off to the adorable little baby-words and generally quieter volume.
But her heart begins to race and she’s more awake than ever when, subconsciously, she begins to pick out a pattern to the cadence of the nonsense. They don’t sound like babbles anymore, for whatever reason – and it does not sit right with Mebuki.
There’s a pattern to these noises.
Then Sakura makes a noise of pure frustration, some foul, bitter, and ugly thing Mebuki has never heard before, some animalistic growl, and soft crying when the flow of noises stops. She’d been trying to speak something, pronounce something, attempt a sentence in–.
Mebuki does not know this language.
The new mother notices all these little things building up over time. Kizashi is also made aware of the odd discoveries of their daughter, during a night of self-hatred and embarrassment. Surely, they must be going insane, right? This is– this has to be some new form of postpartum depression. It happens to a number of mothers, with the hormonal changes and overall pain following the birth. It can develop new, inexplicable symptoms, the kind of stuff that Konohagakure would assign a psychologist for.
Everyone’s paranoid.
(Kizashi sides with his wife, for their daughter does more than just speak in tongues)
There are days when the parents burst into the nursery room, happy smiles and contagious laughter, ready to wake up their daughter for feeding time, when Sakura does not understand what to do. The baby sits up straight in the crib, completely motionless, staring blankly at the epitome of happiness and excitement, those beautiful green eyes all dead and empty inside. Then, a heartbeat later, she immediately contorts her expression to a smile and a giggle (and all of her giggles sound exactly the same, the same volume, pitch, tone, level, and length), and goes through the motions.
“Perhaps Sakura-chan is sick,” Kizashi suggests.
Their daughter is six, almost seven months old, and shows no signs of typical infant-afflicting illnesses, but the idea that maybe, just maybe, there’s some sort of disease that’s making her be this way, comforts Mebuki.
It takes a week to see the specialist doctor, and it’s at an odd hour of the night, but it matters little to them.
Doctor Takahashi is a gruff old man, covered in burn scars and wrinkles, but he takes their daughter from the parents’ arms so tenderly and carefully that Mebuki does a full one-eighty of her first impression of the man and remembers that oh, this special paediatrics doctor is one of the ninja doctors. No wonder the booking was so difficult.
The best thing about Konoha has to be the healthcare, surely. All residents of the village have access to the best hospital of the country, free of charge, paid by taxes – the only downside, understandable as it is, is that the medical ninja always treat other ninja first.
“What seems to be the problem,” he says, quickly checking the open files on the attached sink-table, “Er… Haruno-san?”
There’s no way to spin it without seeming insane, so Kizashi runs a tale of their daughter lightly hitting her head against the crib bars a few weeks ago, but with no sign of bruising or other injury, they didn’t think to bring her to a clinic – but then, out of nowhere, for the past few days their poor, poor daughter has been showing signs of unusually slow behaviour.
“Just little things,” Kizashi says, scratching the back of his head naturally, prompting Mebuki’s turn.
The terrified mother smiles, using ingrained manners lessons from her childhood to pull through. “Oh, you know, we’re just very worried about our Sakura-chan. We’ve noticed that lately she doesn’t seem to respond to us in an appropriate amount of time, nor does she seem to be… Oh, I don’t know… happy?”
Doctor Takahashi slowly nods, setting the baby girl on the examination table with natural ease.
And Sakura looks shocked.
Other adults wouldn’t notice these things, chalking it down to weird baby stuff, but the Haruno parents just know. Those widening eyes, that open mouth that would’ve looked cute anywhere else, and the upturned eyebrows that look like typical baby-ish curiosity, but is, in fact, a sign that the girl has understood all of their words and that she is trying to process upsetting information.
Mebuki’s grip on her husband’s hand grows tighter.
They run through dozens of cognitive and reaction tests, where, between each trial, whilst the doctor’s back is turned, her tiny little lips twist into hurt and her wide eyes stare and stare and stare at the parents with a mixture of betrayal and confusion.
(How did they know, how did they find out, what else is going to happen now–!)
“Hmmm. That’s odd.”
The doctor’s words break them out of the cage of their mind (all three of them).
“Sensei…?” Mebuki ventures, tremulous.
He laughs. “No, it’s not bad. Just adding up all the scores, it’s obvious to see that there’s nothing physically wrong with your daughter, other than above-average intelligence. She scored in the ninety-ninth percentile for civilian children for pattern recognition! Congratulations! I’ll do the final check-up now and I’ll give you my referral letter in no time.”
It’s probably just some growing pains. It’s probably just a personality quirk. It’s probably just below-average emotional connection.
Everything is completely fine!
There’s nothing– not– nothin– NOTHING IS WRONG.
The Harunos do not know what to do now.
There’s NOTHING wrong with sweet, innocent, normal, perfect little Haruno Sakura.
Doctor Takahashi puts a glowing mint-green hand to the baby’s head, checking the last piece of the (absent) puzzle, and the bewildered look, the startled, jumpy hands, the sudden intake of breath, should frighten most other parents, but it pleases Mebuki to no end. She feels a great weight fall from her shoulders, burdenless, flying, free, high in the clouds where silly little children and empty, empty eyes are no longer present.
“What– What is it, sensei?” Kizashi asks, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
They check the clock and calendar on the wall. Nine forty-eight p.m., on the tenth of October. This is a day they’ll remember forever – the day they get answers.
“Any history of shinobi in your family?”
The doctor’s tone is sharp and worried. It’s so goddamn nice.
No, they say. No, they say to nearly every single question. No ninja, no drugs, no allergies, no unusual circumstances during the birth, no feelings of extreme exhaustion during the last trimester, no, no, no, nothing.
“Because,” Doctor Takahashi says, “There’s something… interesting about your daughter’s chakra. I need you to sign off on some documents, we’re going to have to report this to–.”
There’s a moment, always, right before death, when everything just slows down. Extremely high spiritual to physical chakra ratio? Extremely high yin to yang chakra ratio? What’s that? What does that matter, what does that mean, what does that imply? Yes, exactly, it means nothing in the face of death, where everything’s all crystal clear yet muddy in the brain, and the air’s stale and cold, and sounds just become low, vibrato, and stretched-out.
“I’ve got the documents over here, I’ll just–”
Mebuki sees, in slow motion, her little Sakura-chan tremble. It makes her feel good, in an ugly kind of way, like a grand reveal of the villain at the end of every play, but this time, with the knowledge of the sequel where the villain is taken away at the end by the good guys.
“–and if you’ll just…”
The blacks crackle and fold. The play has ended.
The wall is gone.
It’s weird.
The wall is gone, the entire other side of the paediatrics room is gone, and the doctor is gone.
The Kyūbi attacks Konohagakure, and the Harunos miss their chance. But, but, but, the doctor had mentioned something was medically wrong with their child, in a way that would make a ninja worried, where they would probably run some tests on Sakura, where they would just fucking despise her because she’s not normal. It’s too late to do anything, too, because now all they can do is sit in their flat, luckily not torn down from that monster’s warpath, and live with their cute little round-faced thing who they know now, doesn’t love them, doesn’t see them as parents, and is afraid of being discovered.
It feels so, so dirty and foul, but Mebuki can no longer bear to look at those big green eyes without wondering if there’s even a child behind them.
A mother knows best.
Several of their friends die in the attack. All of their close family members die in the attack. Quite a few neighbours die in the attack.
No one will notice.
It’ll be several years before anyone even deigns to ask, oh my, what happened to sweet Sakura-chan? And Mebuki will look away, hiding shame and fear under a solemn gaze, and Kizashi will gruffly respond with something vague, letting people extrapolate the expected answer. By then, little Sakura-chan will be old enough to be mostly forgotten. Purple hair and red hair – what did you say again? A pink haired child? Don’t be ridiculous. Look at the parents! And mind your manners, don’t ask about sensitive things, those poor parents must be so distressed!
Haruno Mebuki drops her six month old daughter off onto the footsteps of the village orphanage, a note tucked away in the blanket.
A mother knows best.
The quiet is a simmering, angered violet, vivid and dark and twisting. I try to speak, but the words don’t come out, so I’m left wide-eyed and shaking. The poisonous expectations taste like wilted roses in my mouth.
There is not enough hatred in my heart to comfort me, for I am dead.
(–and not)
How dare I be this way, I hear over and over again from eyes that are too heavy and afraid, disgusted and repulsed. Where is my perfect little girl? Where is my child? Where is my child?
What they don’t tell you about rebirth is that it’s very, very hard to hide. I have the typical baby instincts, where I cry and shit and latch onto bottles, but other than that, I just don’t fucking know how to behave. How to react. How to do anything but be me. And parents don’t want an adult-turned-child, they want the mind and soul of the literal baby I killed to be here. I replaced tiny Sakura-chan with this monstrosity – me.
So, supposedly it’s a good thing that they decided to give me away to the orphanage before they could muster up the wits to have another hospital check-up. Tests, the med-nin had said, because there’s something unusual with my chakra, unusual for a civilian. And that’s how I muster up the sort of attention that I don’t want. Because the truth is, I don’t particularly want to become a kunoichi. I don’t want to fight like a dog under a cruel imitation of a republic that’s hardly a century old, founded on near-genocide and the echoes of hatred. This is a military dictatorship hidden under a thin veneer of trust in an army made up of nepotism and secrets – born from the fact that we happen to be “nicer” than the other, bloodthirsty settlements, which also has absolutely nothing to do with the luck of the environment, where our country happens to have sea access, fertile fields, a warm climate, and state-owned mines underneath the decidedly well-educated daimyo (of course, all these factors definitely don’t add up to a country that can afford to be “nice”).
So I live normally, living a boring life in the orphanage, pretending that everything’s okay.
That is, of course, until I learn at the ripe age of two years old that all orphans are expected to go to the ninja academy. It makes sense, really. The Kyūbi attack depleted the forces and an easy way is to let everyone, before they realise what a bad idea it is, try their hand at becoming a ninja. If they find some poor sap with a talent for skewering people, then great! Sign right up!
And then I learn that it’s actually common practice for all orphans, even before the Kyūbi attack, to try their hand at ninja-ing. This is just how it goes.
A dark, blood-red pain grabs a hold of my heart. I bristle in what I believe to be righteous fury.
I could just fail out, I think. I could just… be sweet and pretty, too kind for this livelihood, begging to be apprenticed to the baker or the kimono maker, where I’d thrive with all my civilian charms and wiles. Look at these soft baby hands, look at this cherry blossom coloured hair, look at those shining jewel eyes.
But then what happens to the future?
Why must I be Haruno Sakura?
If I’d been anyone else, I could’ve… It would’ve been so much easier to run amok, run free, to tear down these chains and run away from this backwards society.
Ugh. Fine.
Fucking fucking fuck it, I’ll be a kunoichi.
But it’s scary. I don’t like this at all.
They’re terrifying, these ninja. The Will of Fire is a way to manipulate desperate ninja to bond together. They idealise a nonsensical philosophy to rationalise why they ought to annihilate opposing forces despite the fact that the only way to progress into a peaceful society is to lay down arms and fucking work together. They destroy families, clans, and thousands of innocent lives all for the sake of an insanely cutthroat military dictatorship – not a lifestyle conducive to happiness or success.
Except Sakura has a decently happy story, in the end. She floats through the academy years, doing normal school girl stuff and reading books. She’s supposed to have an average home life, which I fucked up, but that shouldn’t affect the plot too much. The reason she was put on Team Seven was not due to her home life, not really – they just needed a smart, well-rounded support ninja for the combat-oriented squad, which just so happened to be her (me?). Later on, she goes through somewhat traumatic amounts of drama, then apprentices under the Fifth Hokage, becomes a kickass med-nin, and finally marries the man of her dreams.
Wow.
I don’t care so much about the romance with the kid with a brother complex, nor do I care about the angsty friendship shit.
Well, if it’s put like that, then maybe I don’t have it so bad afterall.
What I do care about is having to quell the flames of revolution licking up to the surface, burning its way through all of my barriers, eating, eating, and eating its way to where it can no longer be hidden. I’m just so afraid of getting accustomed to this society, where I forget the freedoms of advanced society, natural urbanism, and equitable social infrastructure.
I’ll never be happy here.
(Don’t I deserve that much? Please, please, please don’t abandon me, wait no–)
But you know what? Fuck that shit. I’ll make myself happy.
This is my life now, and has been ever since Kaa-san dropped me off at the orphanage with just a note containing my name, birthday, and blood type. I’ve already changed the fated story a bit, and this world is mine for the taking.
There’s these silly things like civilian ethics and morals and how they’re little more than a fairy tale in all countries except Iron.
There’s also the current societal structure itself: constant anticipation of ninja fighting. Wars ruin economics. Debt, inflation, and taxation increases during war times in order to afford the high-risk military budgets. Military consumption dominates all sectors that help progress a society – agriculture, technology, medical care, education, and business investments. Peaceful societies direct their flow of income to bolster growth in the aforementioned sectors. The civilians caused this world’s version of the industrial revolution during peace times, in the era after the warring clans settled down into progresssive city-structure societies. Over the decades, the building of roads eased political tensions and allowed technology to be traded from one country to another, where each civilisation added on their own findings. This resulted in the creation of all the modern day marvels everyone takes for granted: electricity, plumbing, and government-aided equity.
I have thousands of years of history to look back on, from the Babylonians to the ancient Sumers to the Roman Empire. History has allowed me to understand in a way this new, burgeoning world can’t. Konoha isn’t even a century old, and it’s considered one of the more urbanised centres of the country. I have thousands of years of history to base my economic knowledge off of, and I almost pity the scholars here who’ll be forced to learn from their own mistakes in the coming years of human growth.
So, I say, to hell with it.
There’s only one way to change the world to my liking and that’s through following the plot, then diverging at the exact point where I can gain the political means to accumulate as much power as I want.
Because I’m going to become the fucking Hokage.