Chapter Text
Hakaku has dark purple hair that is often mistaken for black unless she’s directly under the rays of the sun. She has light brown eyes and puffy, dark pink lips that she often sucks into her mouth when she does errands at night.
She’s as beautiful as a six year old can be, which is probably why Yamanaka Ino approaches her a month into their first year.
Ino introduces herself politely, her followers fanned out behind her in a lopsided arrow shape. Hakaku recognizes it as a power play; a performance of perceived influence. To be fair, the Yamanaka Heiress definitely holds sway within the four walls of their classroom.
Hakaku introduces herself as well, words trickling from her lips patiently compared to the exuberant children. She does not have a family name.
“Do you want to be friends? We can go to this tea shop after-”
“No.”
Ino blinks, taken off guard. She hadn’t expected anyone to blatantly disagree with her this late into the year, when groups are formed and people stop accepting strangers. Especially a girl- in fact, Hakaku is the only female in the class who Ino isn’t friends with.
She had planned to rectify that today, to adopt the second quiet girl in the class, just like Haruno Sakura.
“... What?” Ino questions belatedly.
Hakaku answers patiently, but without hesitation. Her tone is neither kind nor rude.
“I don’t want to be friends with you.”
Ino’s plans are rapidly falling apart, and the girls behind her have gone deathly quiet; frozen. It’s then that the Yamanaka realizes she has a lot to learn.
Because this girl is nothing like sweet, meek Sakura.
---
Hakaku leaves the classroom when class is dismissed, the ‘event’ from lunch long forgotten.
She heads to an empty training ground, sets down her backpack, and practices the new taijutsu style her sensei had shown her. Hakaku is a genius, a prodigy, and knows this in the same way she knows the Sun will rise every morning.
She is not arrogant, nor does she take it for granted, but her mind works faster and her body follows her mind without complaint.
She is eating her dinner, sitting on the outskirts of the field, when her sensei appears. She had found him when she was two, four years ago, and had a conversation. The Conversation.
[It changed her life.]
The next night, she had been kidnapped from her bed of newspapers in a dirty alley and invited to join Ne. Long story short, Hakaku is, upon his death, the inheritor to the program.
She is The Heiress.
[Hakaku has one accomplishment she is proud of: impressing Shimura Danzo.]
She does not need to network seven year olds when she can network the Clan Heads themselves. She does not need to network when she will cease to exist, when the fiercest light will be unable to detect her, and they only see what she reveals. Hakaku does not network with sniveling fools; she gives them no choice outside of servitude or uselessness.
“Hello, Sensei,” she stands to bow. He examines her; she has his full attention. “It is a relief to see you in good health.”
“Hakaku. Have you completed what you were assigned last week?”
It isn’t really a question, and she simply begins the kata she was shown. Half an hour later, she received the nod of approval and Six and Eleven attack. They spar for hours, stopping when she gets a gash in the leg from being too slow.
Hakaku is an orphan to shinobi parents and her chakra reserves are the size of an average chunin. By now, they are depleted and she quietly receives the scrolls her sensei hands her.
The lessons she is to learn by next week, no doubt. Peeking into the inside, she spots more of Orochimaru’s research, more sealing resources- stolen from Uzumaki Mito and Kushina, as she hasn’t quite hit the level for Uzushio remnants- and new poisons to try along with instructions on how much to ingest.
It's a light load.
When she looks up questioningly, he smirks and pats her head.
“The downfall of the Uchiha is approaching,” he answers her silent query, “I expect to be impressed.”
She nods diligently. “Of course, Sensei.”
---
Occasionally, when she needs to destress, Hakaku dons an airtight henge and sneaks into ANBU headquarters. It’s light, but she thinks it passes her ‘never stop training’ rule- it works on her infiltration skills.
Her sensei makes her hobby a game: she can’t talk to the same person twice, can’t ever use the same entrance, must steal clothes from the showers.
Danzo has a cruel streak, but it isn’t meant to harm anyone he considers loyal.
It’s on one of these ‘vacations’ that she meets the notorious ANBU Captain Wolf. He’s drenched in blood, a trail of crimson footprints winding a single step behind him, a lovely crimson shadow weaving a river of apathy and destruction in his wake.
[She’s a bit jealous that he can afford to be tracked. More than that though,]
The other operatives dart out of the corridor like frightened children.
[Hakaku’s impressed.]
That, she blinks her coffee-with-milk orbs, is someone to network with.
While Ne agents know her skill and respect her authority, the same cannot be said everywhere else. No one else sees her as anything but a first year Academy student. A young girl.
A sniveling fool.
The same cannot be said of Wolf, who she suspects is the Yondaime’s apprentice who dropped off the face of the planet in the wake of his teacher's demise. No one has caught a glimpse of Hatake Kakashi in several years, nor is he dead. In shinobi culture, this means one thing.
And ANBU changes people in such mysterious ways, she grins underneath a porcelain mask, he might be perfect.
She disappears.
---
She is six and a half when she completes her plan for the Uchiha, the first large project Danzo has given her. [It must be perfect. Opportunities can be taken twice as quickly as they are given.] She must deliver to him (1) the Sharingan and (2) make the Uchiha a non-threat. He had encouraged a humble genocide, but she is far too intelligent for a rustic massacre.
There is a time and a place, and the Uchiha have a vast potential to be reshaped. All they need to do is force Hiruzen into a corner until he authorizes them to “handle the situation.”
The infants and toddlers will be inducted into Ne, as the Sharingan is far too powerful to simply throw away. The civilians and ninja will be slaughtered, eyes stolen. She and Wolf will perform the murders, with Ne guarding the perimeter.
Wolf will know little about the operation, and the mission reports will be full of perfect lies- not that she believes the weary Sandaime will examine it too closely.
She taps her ink brush against her lips.
There are whispers of a new generation of genius’ born to the Uchiha, two young boys no older than three. Sasuke puffs up in pride when he speaks of little Itachi.
Sasuke must die, as he is old enough to be loyal to his clan, but Hakaku supposes she could do him a favor and keep his brother alive.
She’s always wanted a pet.
---
Sensei approves her plan, and they move into implementation.
Her days at the Academy are quiet while she studies the Clan Heirs and sleeps with her eyes open, often exhausted after training through the night. It’s a blessing that classes go on for about nine hours, the perfect amount of sleep for a developing ninja.
Hakaku’s grades are steadily above average, and she still hasn’t conclusively decided if she wants to become top kunoichi or join a team, as sensei uncharacteristically encourages, or simply melt into the shadows.
The jinchuriki could also be worth networking with, she thinks absentmindedly, but not yet.
---
Hakaku sheathes her daggers underneath a large tree in blossom. In the day, it would provide sought after shade.
It’s night time; an hour past midnight.
She is six and nine months and her project has been executed perfectly. The infants and eyes are in her sensei’s clutches, she has two pet Uchiha- graciously gifted as part of her reward- and access to all the Uchiha paper resources; scrolls, books, summoning contracts.
Her sensei is cunning, but he has average intelligence and is a busy man. It will not harm his legacy to make his heiress flawless.
[There is a balance to their relationship.]
ANBU Wolf disappears when his mission is over, and Hakaku-as-Hana-taichou does not wave as he leaves. Hakaku hopes she’ll be there when the mask finally comes off in the future. [She sincerely wishes that he’ll refuse to die in the field- it’d be a shame.] There’s something breathtaking in watching someone powerful crumble to the unseen.
(Hakaku is not a sociopath, but she has yet to learn or value emotions.)
Hana is not separate from Hakaku, like others are with their masks, and she watches impassively as red plum blossoms fall into puddles of blood, the crimson creeping in from the edges, drowning delicate petals.
"Devoured," Hakaku says, toneless.
[The moon grins at her.]