Chapter Text
Sakura sits on her desk in awe, shock, apprehension? She isn't quite sure how to feel as she stares at the letter in her hand. It was a standard letter with its white paper, black ink and standard academy stamp. But there was one part in particular that drew her attention.
‘Your application for the academy internship program has been accepted.
You have been assigned to the Torture And Interrogation division. ’
The words ‘Torture and Interrogation’ swim through her mind. Of Course she got one of the worst assignments possible. Honestly, what division would have been worse? She had already suspected she wouldn't have gotten a very good department. But still, Never would she have thought that the village could send a ten year old academy student to Torture & interrogation of all places. Do they want her to fail? To give up being a shinobi?
‘It's because you're civilian born. You know this.’ Inner reminds unhelpfully.
Sakura sometimes wishes Inner were real and she could punch Inner to shut her up.
But Inner was right. Sakura knew, she just didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to lose faith. But seeing as Inner stated it, she realizes she long has.
She wanted to learn combat skills, not how to extract information with or without cruelty.
She shivered slightly at the prospect of what she would learn. Whether it was in excitement or misery was still a mystery.
Sakura sighs and turned to the picture of her brother she kept on her table. The familiar face, long pink hair tied in a loose ponytail, mischievous green eyes, all threatened to make her cry.
Oh, how she wishes she could cry to her brother about it, like she used to. She would have complained about how it was so unfair. He would have smiled and consoled her. He would have listened to her rant and nodded along. He would have then reminded Sakura how this is an opportunity for her to learn a lot and get experience and information.
She can only imagine what he would say now.
Sakura puts her thoughts aside before she spirals again. She gets up for dinner, making sure to take the letter with her.
Sakura heads downstairs and seats herself opposite to her father at the dining table. Her mother, Mebuki, is in the kitchen and her father, Kizashi, is sitting at the table with her. He is reading the newspaper. They don't greet each other. They never do.
Sakura doesn't particularly like her father. He doesn't punish her. But he doesn't stop the punishment or check if she is okay afterwards either.
Sakura sits silently until her mother arrives. Mebuki begins setting the food.Sakura keeps quiet and doesn't greet her mother.
She doesn't particularly like her mother either. Her mother always punished her for the smallest things. Her mother punishes her for simply sitting with her legs open or speaking too loud. She says it is ‘unladylike’.
“Honestly Sakura, if you don't start to cook more and help out around the house, how will you become a good wife in the future!? Your husband won't want a wife who won't cook.” Haruno Mebuki admonishes as she finishes setting the table.
Sakura keeps her face even. She fights every inner demon she has(Inner included, though she is still on the fence about calling Inner a demon. It would be an insult to demons), to reply with a monotonous, “I will learn, Okaa-sama.”
“Ha. You always say that but you never do. You spend more time playing shinobi.” Mebuki comments with a scoff.
Sakura stays silent. She knows that if she opens her mouth, she'll say something to retort to her mother and get punished as a consequence. She hides a shudder in response to the thought.
The rest of the dinner goes by silently, the only chatter being work matters from her parents. Sakura quietly eats her food while her parents discuss recent trends, which trading route to take next, which land to go to, and a variety of other topics.
This information may not seem important, but Sakura keeps her ears open. After all, traveling merchants like her parents know the economic states of different lands to know which one would be best to trade in. They know which countries welcome them and which are hostile. They give her information on the outside world like this and they don't even know.
Something that her brother taught her was that Information, no matter how small it may seem, is key for survival. She knows that if she wants to survive as a ninja, the more she knows the better.
It is after dinner is over and Mebuki is keeping the dishes back that Sakura finally speaks. She had been thinking of all the different ways she could phrase it.
“The academy is having an internship programme. Students get field experience by interning in different departments.” Sakura prompts quietly, trying to test the waters. Her hands are fidgeting. She's nervous, she realizes.
“You want to do it?” Hizashi asks while looking at her disapprovingly.
Her parents never agreed to her choice of profession. They saw ninja as glorified killers who threw their lives away carelessly. They wanted her to become a merchant like them. This feeling only intensified after her brother…
Mebuki comes out now as well and sits next to Hizashi. Her look is demanding an explanation. She clearly heard Sakura from the kitchen.
Sakura silently slides the letter over. She makes it a point to keep her gaze on the table rather than her parents’ disapproving eyes. She knows they will be angry, but this isn't something she is going to let them take away.
“You can not skip it.” Her mother's voice is absolutely frigid. It wasn't a question. She would have to pay a fine if she wanted to quit now.
‘We are screwed.’ Inner supplies, always happy to voice Sakura's thoughts.
“You went behind our backs and applied.” Hizashi comments as he reads. His voice may seem emotionless but Sakura knows he's mad. He may not do anything, but he certainly won't stop her mother from doing anything.
Sakura winces but nods. She keeps her head low as her mother gets up and goes to the kitchen. She already knows what's coming. It hardly helps.
She's been through this hundreds of times. She wishes she felt slightly less anxiety because of it. Somehow, knowing what is coming and how it feels only makes it worse.
Mebuki returns after a minute, piping hot steel spatula in hand. Her expression is as cold as the spatula is hot. There's not a hint of hesitation or guilt on her face. She's waiting for Sakura to do something.
Already familiar with this practice, Sakura rolls up her sleeves and raises her forearms. Old burn marks that aren't fully healed yet bloom on her arms. Mebuki doesn't seem to care as she slowly lowers the stick part of the spatula.
Sakura grits her teeth when she feels the familiar burn of the metal on her skin. It would surely leave marks again.
Sakura absentmindedly wonders if the marks would ever fade, before the metal rises and presses in a different spot. She can absently hear her mother speak as she repeats the action over and over, ‘This is for your own good’, ‘You will never find a husband if you keep getting burnt like this’, ‘Why do you have to be a shinobi?’.
Sakura is long used to this and keeps silent as her mother repeats the process until there are no strips of discolored skin on her forearms, but the whole arm is.
Mebuki keeps the spatula away and says coldly. “Sakura Haruno, you are to kneel outside for three hours. Only then are you allowed to return inside.”
Sakura just nods, muttering a ‘yes, okaa-sama’. She gets up and goes outside to kneel without much thought. Her mind is absent as her body goes through the familiar motions.
She kneels on the rocks(Grass would be far too nice of a punishment for her). The rocks break her skin after the first half hour of kneeling. The skin was already delicate from the last time she had to kneel. Her blood flows over the rocks again. She watches her blood flow with a blank expression. The sight doesn't even scare her anymore. She thinks it's pretty. She wonders if it would look as pretty if she were to bleed out to death. Would her parents even care?
She stays there, so used to the pain it only serves as a background, as she thinks back to her mother's question. Why does she want to be a shinobi…
It was a normal summer day for five year old Sakura. She was with her brother. He was teaching her how to walk on water. The two were extremely close, in spite of their 10 year age gap.
As Sakura fell into the river for the 10th time, she started to whine.
“It's too difficult, Sakuto-nii! I can't do it.” Sakura pouts from her spot on the bank. She doesn't understand why it's so hard. Tree walking was so easy, why was this so difficult. She looks to her brother. He was in his normal shinobi clothes. The familiar Black-Grey armor that put his spiral tattoo on display. She hadn't seen other shinobi wearing anything similar to his. Only some weird shinobi who wore porcelain animal masks, but her brother never wore a mask around her.
Sakuto only unhelpfully chuckles at her plight. He is standing in the middle of the lake. He had been trying to get Sakura to walk to him at the mid point.
“You have to keep changing the chakra flow to match the water, Sakura.” Sakuto reminded gently, before his expression took on a teasing tone. He enjoyed joking with his sister a lot.
“Unless you can't?” Sakuto teased her, amusement shining in his eyes.
“I can do it! Just watch me!” Sakura fumed and ran to the river.
Sakuto smiled as he watched her. He always loved how mad he could make her.
She managed to walk a few steps before plummeting again. Sakuto's laughter being a background noise as she swam out, strengthening her muscles with chakra as she did.
She has it done by sunset. Sakuto used a minor wind jutsu(extremely powered down) to dry her off. Their parents didn't know that Sakuto was teaching Sakura. It was their little secret.
After he finished, Sakura asked him curiously, “Sakuto-nii, why are you a shinobi?”
Sakuto just smiles and ruffles her hair. “Come with me. I'll tell you after.” Sakuto picks her up in his arms and begins walking.
Sakura pouts but lets him carry her with little fuss. The pair take a walk through the civilian district. The street is bustling with smiling people. People out to do shopping, people returning home, children playing and running, it's a mesmerizing sight.
Some kids in her neighborhood were playing shinobi. The old lady who sells dango was giving a discount today, it seemed. The pair kept walking. Eventually they walked out of the civilian district.
Sakuto takes Sakura to the top of hokage rock. He sits down with her in his lap. He pouts at the boundary wall.
“See that Sakura? That's the village boundary. Everything inside it is our Konohagakure.”
Sakura is entranced by the view of the village. She can see their house from here. She can see the different districts too. Everything was so small, but so beautiful. It was something so precious and important to her.
“Sakura, this village of ours is beautiful, isn't it?” Sakuto smiles, noticing her entranced look.
Sakura nods enthusiastically in response “The most beautiful!”
He holds his baby sister close. He remembers how he ran with her in his hands during the attack. All he could do then was run. Their parents were out of town and Sakura was left with him. He remembers how scared he was. But what scared him the most was that he might not be able to protect that bundle in his arms. He had managed to get by safely, but he knew that he wanted to be the kind of ninja that would ensure it wouldn't happen again. Perhaps this little bundle of joy in his arms is why he has a porcelain animal mask in his pocket.
“Sakura, this village is my home. It's home to everyone I care about, which includes you. This village of ours was threatened during the nine tails attack. I realized that I wanted to do everything I could to protect it. That's why I am a ninja.” Sakuto smiles warmly as he rests his head on top of hers.
Looking at this view, Sakura thinks she understands.
“Then, I want to be a ninja like you!” Sakura looks at her brother, the person she loves more than anyone else.
Sakuto just laughs, “Okaa-sams will kill me if she hears you. She's already mad that you want to be a shinobi.”
Sakura just pouts at how he dismisses her.
Little did she know just what Sakuto's job entailed.
Sakura snaps out of her thoughts as she looks up at the moon. Time is over.
She doesn't enter through the door again. She knows it'll be locked. She uses chakra to scale the wall and enter her bedroom through an unlocked window. She silently walks to her bed and pulls out a first aid kit from underneath.
Sakura’s mind is blank as she goes through the familiar motions of cleaning the blood, applying ointment to the burns and bandaging everything up. It hurts but she doesn't care.
If she wants to be a good ninja. If she wants to serve and protect her village, she could, she had to endure it all.
As she finishes her bandages, she makes up her mind. She is going to use this internship to her full advantage. She is going to make the best she can with the cards she was dealt.
Just you wait…