Year 5

"Mom, Dad, I want to become a ninja." Sakura tells her parents with genuine annoyance this time.

Sakura's dad looks highly annoyed as well, "Sakura, it is too dangerous."

He is right to be annoyed because she has been stuck on this for over a year now and appears to show no sign of dropping it. She is right to be annoyed because she has been asking this for over a year now and her parents still didn't want her to become a ninja and when she asked why they always said that being a ninja was too dangerous without any other explanation.

Over and over never changing their tune.

Sakura gets so frustrated at them that she yells something… Something horrible… Something she could never, ever take back.

"The ninja came back!"

Right after she yells, she gets stiff and her whole face turns white with shock at what she had actually said. Both of her parents also get stiff and white with shock at what their little girl had just said. They all knew what she was talking about or rather who she wasn't talking about.

Who never came back.

Her dad is the first to recover from his shock. However, instead of going back to normal his face transitions from the white of shock to a dark red of rage.

This raises a great fear in Sakura. She has never seen her dad so angry at anything before, let alone at her. All of a sudden, she feels that he is to close. He seems to tower over her in his rage. Her mother besides him also looks fearful.

"Ninja! Ninja!" He shouts down at her. "Ninja killed your uncle! Ninja killed your grandfather! Ninja killed your grandmother! Our entire family has been killed by ninja! For hundreds of years, every trader in our family has been killed by ninja! We are the only Harunos left!"

This causes her mother to tip a little to the side almost fainting in fear. However, she pulls herself together.

"Sakura. Go to your room." She says steadily at just above a whisper.

The instant she says that Sakura bolts up the stairs to her room, closes her door loudly, and dives into bed under her covers. She cowers there under her covers with a light pink stuffed rabbit in her arms shivering.

However, overtime she calms down.

After calming down, she gets out of bed quietly, opens her bedroom door, and sneaks down enough stairs to see and hear what is going on. She sees her dad sitting on the couch with his head down looking at the carpet, expressionless. Her mom is sitting next to him silently looking at him in concern.

After a while the silence is broken.

"Kizashi… Kizashi, you shouldn't have said that, let alone yelled it." Her mom says softly.

After a pause, her dad still looking at the carpet replies hoarsely but equally soft, "Yes... Yes, I know."

"You… You never know if they are nearby… You… You can't ever say that." Her mom says in concern.

"I know." Her dad says again.

They are silent again for a while longer.

"W-what if we move." This time her dad breaks the silence with a soft voice.

"You… You know it's even more dangerous out there. Konoha is the safest place in the entire world." Her mom denies.

"I… I know… This is a ninja world. Ironically enough, this is the safest place to be." Her dad agrees with a small hollow laugh.

"You can't ever let them know… Know that we hate them." That last sentence was so soft that Sakura could just barely hear it from the stairs, the last part coming out in a hiss.

Sakura then sneaks back to her room, quietly closes the door, gets back under her covers, and hugs Bufe, her stuffed rabbit, as hard as she can.

'So... they didn't want me to become a ninja because they don't like shinobi, they are afraid of shinobi, they HATE shinobi.'

Her deep bright green eyes, then grow serious.

'Being a ninja is dangerous, but being a defenseless civilian is even more dangerous.'

-=-=-=-=- -=-=-l=l-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-​

"Shinta…"

"Huh? Oh its you… What is it Pink Girl?" The boy with two brown face markings who Sakura had sent crying more a year ago asks annoyed. Now he is wearing a green hat over his brown hair and a grey T-shirt.

"Ano… You're from a shinobi family right?" Sakura asks uncertainly.

"Yeah… And?" Shinta questions irritated.

"Is… Is there anything they are making you do to prepare for the academy?"

This puts an annoyed look on his face, "Yeah! They force me to run every day until I can't go any further and then force me to run even more! It's annoying. And not only that but they make me go through all of these stretches and are forcing me to read and write this complicated stuff. And not only that -" Shinta continues to complain exaggeratedly on and on about all the 'annoying' things his parents are forcing him to do. Never once in his self-centeredness noticing the pink girl's deep green eyes focusing seriously on him. Remembering every single word he says, and then trying to filter out the important information from his babbling.

Drawing the truth from his exaggeration.

Sakura had asked many others before this point. However, for some reason that she could not figure out, the less likeable and more self-centered they are the more likely they were to give actually useful information. The nicer kids either seemed to not know any useful information or would know but never tell her anything useful.

Sometimes the answer you least expect turns out to be the correct one. The more boastful, more annoying, the meanest kids give the best information and the nicest kids give the very least useful information.

At least that is what she has discovered.