AN: is anyone else annoyed that the doc manager sorts it from high word count to low? it pisses me off cuz i get confused. please change it to recently edited/opened or whatever.

Sakura is young when she meets her first real kunoichi— her mom. She doesn't really notice it at first— what differs her mom from the rest of the neighborhood girls' moms until she gets up close— it is glaringly obvious when the women are in the same room. Her mother and her too short ring finger (her last knuckle is missing) and the way she leans to one side (to compensate for the prosthetic leg Sakura would play with when she was a baby) and the ever roaming eyes, never landing solidly on one thing, instead drifting and watching— always watching.

Her mom laughs when they other ladies eye her with disgust, when Sakura gets teased because her mom is scarred and ugly and a cripple. She laughs and laughs until her throat gives out and her eyes start to water—

"There's no use for a pretty dead body, but quite a bit of use for an ugly live one."

Sakura goes to civilian academy everyday armed to the teeth- there's a knife in her boots and a razor in her mouth and she has cuts all over her hands from the combat lessons her mom gives (even with one and a half legs, Mother kicks her ass forwards and backwards). Mother doesn't care if Sakura chooses to be a civilian, no child of her's would go anywhere without some way to defend themselves.

The children at school are decidedly not nice to people with pink hair and big foreheads and weird cuts and scars on their hands.

She comes home with bruises on her skin and a sniffling nose. Sakura eyes her mother's burning cigarette on her lips with interest, if only to avoid her gaze (Mother's green eyes still burn her, like a fire— yet there's something distinctly cold in her emerald eyes).

"You know what to do."

The blade in her mouth feels bigger than it ever has before.

Sakura is expelled from the civilian public education system with blood on her hands and bile in her mouth. Koichi has a cut that will definitely scar and Sakura is bound for home learning. Her mother looks at her with something akin to pride, and talks about sending her to the Academy but there's a nervous glint in her eyes, through the haze of alcohol. She's twitchier than usual and trains Sakura to the ground everyday. Mother doesn't let her out of her sight anymore, but the tension in the house is stifling, her mom angrier and more irritable because she refuses to drink in front of her daughter, but she's clearly going through withdrawls.

It's best for the both of them when Sakura sneaks out to the park. Mother reaquaints herself with the bottle and Sakura feels the sun on her cheeks for the first time in weeks. The park is near silent— odd for the usually busy park— but she doesn't think too much about it— too busy reveling in her freedom and reprieve for her constantly sore muscles.

(That's her first mistake, but Sakura is young, only six, with no experience in genjutsus or with breaking them, it's unfair to blame herself or even Mother— she couldn't have known that Danzo would attempt it even with Mebuki still alive.)

A hand on her shoulder, a comforting smile, large, round glasses that glint in the sunlight, grey hair, and a Konoha hitai-ate— "your mother has passed Sakura-chan, the Honorable Danzo-sama would like to take you in," a wink, "he has an eye for talent, and you, Sakura-chan, are very talented."

She goes with him.

The first thing they do is shave her pink locks, she barely feels it, numb from the confusing mixture of relief and crushing sadness— Mother (who bruises her and works her to the ground, gives comforting hugs, the smell of burning tobacco that clings to her short, blonde locks, stories before bedtime, when she broke off the leg of an old table, took off her prosthetic and pretended to be a pirate) is gone. The memories flash through her mind and tears stream down her face as she sobs, no noise escaping her. The kind look in grey hair's face is replaced with a cold, assessing look, growing colder every time she audibly sniffs, the masked person shaving her head brushes pink strands off her shoulders and pries open her mouth. Sakura eyes the brush in the Mask's hand curiously through her slowly ceasing tears and watches him do six signs before the cool ink grazes her tongue and then—

It burns. She whimpers quietly, the tears flowing faster when she tries to close her mouth, but the grip the Mask has on her jaw is strong and she can't fight him. Sakura just wants to go home, even if Mother isn't there, she wants to hide in the safety of her pink sheets with small aliens on them that she picked out herself and she's scared. She's never met anyone named Danzo, hasn't met anyone that was so important they had the word Honorable in front of their name. She hasn't even met anyone who has a "sama" at the end of their name, and she thinks that if she does meet him she won't like him— especially if he's the one who's put this on her tongue. She cries harder, ignoring the pounding behind her eyes.

Grey hair snaps his fingers, eyes going from assessing to irritated faster than she can blink. "Dry it up Haruno," he smiles, something cold and dangerous, "welcome to Root. You can call me Kabuto-sensei."

"Sakuuuuuraaa!" Mebuki hollers up the stairs. "Dinner!"

No answer. She frowns, knowing she's not quite drunk enough to miss anyone responding or Sakura's small feet running around upstairs and urges her chakra to metabolize the alcohol in her blood quicker— if only to clear her head so she can think. She's probably in the park, she reasons, tugging on her sandals and slamming the door behind her. The sun is already setting, Sakura knows she has to be home before sunset when she goes out, Sakura is probably on her way home, Mebuki keeps her head up, eyes scanning the street for a small head of the most ridiculous pink hair she's ever seen.

Sakura is not at the park. She is not at home when Mebuki checks again back at the house. No one at the park has even seen her, none of the stall owners ever saw her coming back, saying they remember her going but not passing by again. Fear courses through her body as she frantically runs through Konoha looking for her baby. She's circled Konoha three times, asking everyone she sees in the late hour if they've seen her baby (she has pink hair and gorgeous green eyes, please, you can't miss her). Her joints ache and her child is still missing.

"Get ahold of yourself Mebuki," she whispers to herself, taking a deep breath. She turns in the direction of the Uchiha compound.

Mikoto still owes her a favor.