Chapter Text
1
”Sakura-chan, no!"
Fear pierces through her, sharper even than the blade held to her throat. The man grasping her from behind warns her to quit squirming, though she's not. Not on purpose, at least. She looks down at her parents, on their knees before her. Crying. Begging. Mud seeps into her mother's new dress, staining the delicate flowers that Sakura had been busy admiring not even ten minutes ago.
The rain hadn't been the only thing that surprised them on their return trip.
And then: pain. It blossoms from her neck before she is dropped to her hands and knees. Grunts sound from close behind her, but she scrambles away on unsteady limbs. One of the horses whinny in fear, and she feels a displacement of air near her head as a pair of hooves come down, just barely missing her. Her mother rushes forward and gathers her smaller body into her arms, shielding her. Sakura shakes so hard, she thinks the only thing tethering her in place is her mother's embrace. Her teeth chatter uncontrollably. It's a completely new sensation; one that she doesn't enjoy at all.
Within moments, there is a sudden and terrifying silence. So sudden, in fact, that she initially believes that sleep has overtaken her. That the darkness of her vision isn't due to her face being smushed into her mother's grasp, but instead due to being caught in the space between wakefulness and slumber. It feels like an unsettling trance, but one that is thankfully broken when she realizes that her mother is still trembling against her, and that the pain at her neck still throbs.
"Let me see her."
The voice comes from behind Sakura, breaking the silence. It's muffled. Unfamiliar. Her mother's arms tighten around her, but she hears her father say that she'll be alright, and soon she's being turned.
A man stands before her. Or, at least, she can only assume so from the timbre of his voice. A mask hides his face, with a swirling pattern of a dog painted on the white porcelain. A hooded cloak covers the rest of him.
She looks up to where his eyes should be and sees red. The man slowly reaches out to tilt her head, his fingers brushing against her neck, the touch stinging. She flinches. Her mother is unsuccessfully holding her sobs back, her chest shuddering with big, relieved breaths. When the man finally pulls away, his fingers come back crimson.
Other people mill around them, but Sakura finds that she's too exhausted to even attempt to look. Her eyes are glued to the man in front of her as he reaches for something in one of his many pouches. He lowers himself to her height, settling into a crouch, and gives her a better view of the roll of bandages in his hand.
"You're gonna be just fine."
She awakes, lifting from both her dream and her bed.
"Now who was it that said they would be able to wake up early if I let them stay up late, huh?"
Screeching, Sakura pounds her fists against her father's familiar shoulders. "Otou-san! The sun's barely out! Put me down!"
She doesn't know if her words are true; her eyes have barely opened and her mind has only just left the fog of memories she was displaced from. All she knows is that she wants to burrow straight back under her blankets.
Her father huffs a laugh, and the movement lifts her.
Haruno Kizashi is a big man. And while her father is a gentle giant, he is also a source of great annoyance in the mornings. A morning menace, as her mother often calls him.
With a grin that has Sakura rephrasing her request with a panicked gently!, he tosses her onto her bed before turning towards the wall opposite and pulling the curtains wide open. Sakura hisses, covering her face in an attempt to protect her sleep-sensitive eyes from the bright light that now pierces through her window.
The sun is, unfortunately, much higher in the sky than she had hoped.
Her father moves in front of the window, thankfully blocking some of the light from reaching her. "C'mon, kiddo," he addresses the pane of glass as he overlooks the street below. "The store has been missing you. The Academy's taking up all your time lately, and ol' Sato-san has been up to her usual tricks in your absence." He turns and steps back towards her bed, muttering And I nearly just gave her that dang sword last week. She covers her giggle with a hand, but her father's smile tells her he had heard it. "You know that you're the only one who can keep her in line, Sakura-chan."
Blowing her messy hair from her face, Sakura rolls her eyes. "You're just too soft on her cause she reminds you of obaa-san." Sakura had never met her real grandmother, her father's mother, as she had died years before Sakura had even been born. But her father speaks of her often enough. Based on his stories, and Sakura's own observations, the elderly collector of unique weapons who basically haunts their shop could have been her real grandmother made over.
She certainly feels like family to Sakura, considering how often she had watched her when she was younger. Before Sakura joined the Academy, of course. To Sakura, Sato Hanako is family. And she certainly never complains when Sakura refers to her as such.
"Please, Sakura-chan?" Her father utilizes his greatest weapon—aiming his pleading puppy-dog eyes straight for her.
Doing her best to steel herself against his persuasive ways, Sakura sits up and crosses her arms. She can feel a smile attempting to break free, but she forces it into a frown. She doesn't think it was very successful—she has a very expressive face. "Okaa-san says you're too philanth-thropic," she trips over the word, and heat instantly rushes to her cheeks. Her father ignores the slip up, and a wave of affection rolls over her.
Until he begins to pout.
"No!" Sakura argues, albeit weakly, even to her own ears. "Standing your ground against obaa-san is good practice for keeping a steady head with the other customers!"
His lip wobbles.
So does her backbone.
Throwing her hands in the air, Sakura relents with a groan. "Ugh! Fine." But to be honest, she doesn't mind taking the day to work at her parents' shop. It's where she meets the most interesting people, after all.
Her father throws himself atop her bed and wraps her in a tight hug before knuckling her head affectionately. "Thatta girl, Sakura-chan! I knew I could count on you! Don't worry, you won't have to man the till all day. If one of those Uchiha boys comes over to ask for your hand—"
"Tou-san!"
"—sorry, slip of the tongue. What I meant was if one of your friends comes over, you can leave early to go play."
Her face flames as she bristles. "We're not playing, we're training!"
Her father nods his head in a way that says he's placating her. "Right, right. Now hurry up and get ready, your mother has breakfast waiting for you."
She wiggles free from his grasp and hits him with a pillow. It doesn't stop him from laughing.
The sign for The Bladed Blossom swings gently from its position over the green door of her parent’s store. Sakura watches it from her seat behind the counter, head resting on her propped arm. Her father is busy doing inventory in the front while her mother is in the back office, hunched over various stacks of papers and muttering about a multitude of different numbers that Sakura doesn’t care to memorize.
It’s been a relatively quiet day, and it looks as if it’s going to become a relatively quiet evening, too. A few shinobi currently browse the aisles, and she can hear soft humming coming from an area near the front of the store.
“Ain’t gonna get more customers with that sourpuss face, girl,” Sato Hanako, her granny in everything but blood, says from the right wall of the shop, beady eyes not leaving the curved dagger in her hand. The edge catches the light from the window and reflects into Sakura’s eyes. She knows the old lady is doing it on purpose.
“I’m seven, obaa-san.” Sakura does not whine. She doesn’t. And she also doesn’t scoot over just enough to where the reflecting light can’t reach her. “People think my face is cute whether I’m smiling or not.”
That’s not entirely true, Sakura knows. A few kids had taken offence to her face, particularly her forehead, not so long ago. She had cried in her room for an entire day before picking herself up and dusting herself off. Adults, though—who, for the most part, made up the major demographic of their customer base—were not immune to her charm. It’s how she became so good at haggling for better prices, much to the delight of her parents.
The older woman just grumbles and sets the dagger back into its stand, brushing her now-free hand across the tight, gray bun on the back of her head. It’s held in place with shining kanzashi—a set that Sakura remembers seeing in stock last month. Imported from Kumogakure, it was supposedly made in a way that allowed one to channel chakra through it, like the samurai from Tetsu no Kuni. Sakura hadn’t listened well enough to know the specifics about it, but both her father and her granny had been ecstatic about having it in the shop.
Obaa-san really has been up to her tricks, huh? Sakura thinks as she watches her granny shuffle around an aisle and disappear from her sight, cane thumping on the wood floor with each step.
Moments later, two men approach her counter, and she sits up, softening her grin into a smile. See that, obaa-san? I can look sweet when I need to!
“Hiya, Sakura-chan,” the man on the left greets her. He’s stocky, with a gait marred by a slight limp. His black hair is cropped close to his head, and it looks as if he’s recently started an attempt at growing a beard. It’s in an awkward patchy stage, which is what makes her not recognize this particular Uchiha as quickly as she normally would.
Well, that, and the fact that he’s not wearing his uniform today. Must’ve finally gotten a day off, she thinks. She wonders if that young guy he’s always complaining about has finally finished his training enough to cover the extra shifts.
“Hi, Akaji-san,” she says, all saccharine. Her granny snorts from somewhere close-by, but Sakura ignores her. Akaji is a regular customer of theirs, and keeps them afloat on his shuriken purchases alone.
According to him, his aim is horrendous. She can never tell if he’s joking.
Akaji turns to his companion and thumps him on the shoulder, which draws Sakura’s attention to the other man as well. “Have you met Sakura-chan before, Daiji?” he addresses the other man. Sakura squints, and before he can shake his head, she quickly leans forward, pushing herself up with her palms on the counter in order to get a better look at him. Her feet balance precariously on the rungs of the wooden stool below her, but she manages to keep from tumbling over by shifting more of her weight to her arms.
Unfortunately, this probably makes her look as if she’s about to pounce straight over the counter.
Daiji predictably startles, as any normal person would when faced with the attention of an unknown child such as she, and draws back quickly, a grimace on his face.
“W-what in the world is she doing?” Daiji asks above Akaji’s uproarious laughter. She ignores both of them in favor of looking the strange Uchiha over for any familiar characteristics. He’s obviously a close cousin to Daiji; there is a similarity to their features that’s more than from just their general Uchiha-ness.
Dropping her gaze, she focusses on his height and posture before glancing between his eyes. They don’t flash red, of course, but stay a deep, rich brown.
Akaji answers once he catches his breath, eyes sparkling in mirth. He brings one hand up to self consciously smooth the new hair around his mouth, hiding his grin for a moment. “Sakura here is looking for someone specific, but won’t say who.”
Finding not a single thing she was looking for, she sighs and sits back, dutifully returning to her work of counting up the weapons and totaling the amount.
“Looking for an Uchiha, then?” Daiji asks, sneakily adding his purchase to the counter as well.
Akaji doesn’t seem to notice. “Mm-hmm. She’s been searching for the guy since she was about this tall,” he gestures to somewhere way below his knees. Her eyes narrow. She adds the total of Daiji’s purchases to Akaji’s total as well. “I was startled when she ran up to me one night while I was patrolling the civ-district. I had no idea what to do with this kid who asked me to show her my red eyes.”
Daiji gasps dramatically. She can’t tell if it’s real, or if he’s humoring both of them. “She wanted to see—?” he trails off, gesturing towards his face.
Sakura remembers that day. Her parents had finally told her about the shinobi who were born with special eyes that turn red when they activate their doujutsu. She hadn’t quite understood what that meant at the time, but when her parents pointed out the Uchiha crest and explained that the man from the forest was likely from that clan, she latched onto the first patrolling officer she saw and demanded he show her his eyes.
Thank goodness she had finally stumbled upon Shisui before she could antagonize too many Uchiha without knowing what she was doing.
With a nod, Akaji answers, “Uh-huh. Begged me to show her, then just stopped and turned around in an instant.”
“Why?”
Sakura interrupts. “He was too short.” Surprised laughter roars out of Daiji, who ends up having to hold onto the counter to keep himself upright. Turning with a sharp smile, Sakura asks, “Did you bring your wallet this time, Akaji-sa—”
The bell jingling above the door is their only warning of the oncoming whirlwind.
“SA-KU-RA-CH—OW!”
Sakura and both Uchiha customers look up just in time to see a cane come down again, barely visible from over the top of a shelf.
“Ow! By the Flames, you old bat, stop hitting me!”
“Stop being a menace, you potty-mouthed brat!”
Her father, who knows her all too well, is already making his way up to take her place at the register before Sakura can truly launch herself over the counter.
“Shisui!” she shouts as the adults behind her watch on affectionately. “You’re back!”
Skidding around the shelves, she finds the young Uchiha, cowering from her granny’s wrath. He lowers his arms from their protective position over his head just in time to catch her as she barrels into him.
He smushes her face against his chest, arms as tight around her as hers are around him. Her voice comes out muffled as she complains, “You were gone for so long this time! Itachi said he couldn’t tell me anything about where you were or when you’d be back.”
Shisui finally releases her enough for her to pull back and take a look at his face. There are dark smudges under his eyes again.
“Wow, really? What a meanie, huh?”
Sakura nods pitifully.
From behind Shisui, Itachi intones, “Stop that.”
She hadn’t seen her other friend enter the shop, and the sudden sight of both of them in front of her is enough to make her giddy. “Itachi is here too?” That means I might be able to talk them into helping me train! she thinks.
Itachi nods, then turns towards her granny and gives a quick bow of his head. “Sato-san. I apologize for…” he pauses, as if thinking hard about his next words. He finally settles for an all-encompassing, “…my cousin.”
The elderly woman raises a wizened hand towards Itachi, patting him fondly on the cheek.
Shisui jerks his head back in outrage. “Did you just apologize for my existence?”
Itachi simply stares as Shisui pretends to cry. Sakura pats his back and sends a fake glare towards the stoic Uchiha. A corner of his mouth lifts slightly, and he reaches forward to ruffle her hair.
“Are you youngsters kidnapping my daughter for the day?” her father bellows from the back of the store, interrupting their reunion. From around a door behind the register, her mother’s head pops out.
“Oh, Shisui, Itachi! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? How’s the family, sweetheart?” This she addresses towards Itachi, who answers with a polite, They are well. Towards Shisui, she asks, “Not been getting into too much trouble, I hope?”
Sakura slips away, allowing Shisui to stand to his full height. At fifteen, he assures her that he still has plenty of time to grow, but she thinks she’ll catch up to him soon.
“Me, trouble? You wound me, Mebuki-san!” he says, clutching at his chest. Sakura giggles at his theatrics. When she had first learned of the Uchiha, she thought them to all be scary-looking, inexpressive individuals. Then she met Shisui, who had broken all of those stereotypical beliefs she had formed whilst observing—not stalking!—the Uchiha police who did their rounds near her house and their store.
And then she met Itachi.
“We’ll be back before dark, Mebuki-san!” Shisui brings her back to the present by crouching down in front of her. Knowing what to do, she climbs onto his back and settles her arms around his shoulders before he stands. They both wave towards her parents.
“Bye, otou-san, okaa-san! See you tomorrow, obaa-san!” she calls as they leave.
And now, her favorite part: Shisui takes off once the door behind them closes. He turns into an alleyway that allows him to leap back and forth between the walls, then hops across a multitude of rooftops. Colors and sounds rush by, and she turns to see Itachi attempting to keep pace. Her periphery is a blur, and if she doesn’t keep her eyes straight forward, her stomach pitches in a nauseating warning.
“I think you got faster!” she yells in Shisui’s ear as she turns her head forward again. He laughs, the sound drifting past them as he speeds up even more. She thinks about closing her eyes, but settles for tightening her grip around his neck. She’s not afraid of falling, though. Shisui would never let that happen.
They finally stop on the edge of a tall building that overlooks the main street of Konoha. It’s her favorite spot, because if she looks down, the people milling about almost look like ants. It’s also tall enough for her to see the end of the village, where the wall separates the city from the huge forests that had been made and tended to by the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama. She knows a lot about him now, because the Academy had focused on his life and accomplishments last week.
She thinks about mentioning one of those newly-learned facts, but Shisui seems to be distracted by something in the tree line way off, near edge of the forest beyond. Then she realizes that he probably already knows everything that she had learned in the Academy—and despite the smaller age gap between her and Itachi, the younger of the two Uchiha is well-read, and has a memory as good as her own.
Being unable to share her new and interesting facts makes her mood plummet, but only slightly. One of these days, Sakura promises herself, she’ll learn something that neither of these two know, and she’ll impress them with her worldly knowledge.
Her father affectionately calls her a know-it-all. Her classmates aren’t so kind in their observations. But Shisui—and Itachi, during the times he’s not away on some secret mission—both embrace her love of learning. Shisui says it’s good for a kid to be curious. Itachi says all knowledge is important to a shinobi, who should be able to utilize any information to their own benefit. She’s just glad that neither of them talk down to her when she does say something they already know.
But she’s getting better at choosing what she shares. Not so long ago, she visited the library to check out a book about summoning animals. It’s not very long, and she suspects that there’s plenty that the book doesn’t say, considering it was one of the available tomes for those in the Academy, but it sent her down a rabbit hole in researching the summons of specific historical figures.
Apparently, there used to be a small clan who all partnered with maggots. Her initial reaction upon learning this had been disgust. After all, what kind of person would want to be tied to a bunch of slimy bugs? But then she read from a different book that before Konoha had been founded, during the time the people of this area were nomadic by force rather than choice, not much was known about medical ninjutsu. Fights over land were a constant during that time, and those who were proficient at keeping other people alive were usually the first to be targeted. Medical jutsu wasn’t common, as no one would live long enough to either learn more about healing, nor would they be able to pass on what they did know due to their early demise. That clan’s summons, however, were beneficial on the battlefields and in keeping them alive long enough to eventually live to see the founding of Konohagakure. And—
Well.
She’s rambling in her own mind again.
Below her fingers, Shisui’s shoulders move as he breathes deeply. In the distance, the sun is beginning to set, which colors everything with an orange and yellow hue. It’s pretty, she thinks. It makes the world around them look like a dream. But dreams don’t have this type of oppressive heat, and she’s starting to feel it now that they’re no longer moving. She realizes in her excitement from seeing her friends that she had forgotten to take off the heavy apron she always wears when she’s helping in her parents’ store. The leather ties around the back of her neck start to stick to her exposed skin.
It doesn’t take long before Itachi drops down to land beside them, his shinobi-standard sandals barely making any noise on the flat roof. They all take a moment to watch the view. Her eyes skip over the people milling about below them. She likes to guess what the passing strangers are doing during the tiny blips of time that they are visible to her. The shinobi heading to and fro across rooftops are the easiest—they’re obviously either on a mission, or returning from a mission. She’ll be one of them, soon, she thinks. Then, there are the families. The parents who walk together while trying to keep an eye on their rambunctious children. Those ones are usually heading toward the shopping district, and when she scans the crowds, she can see plenty of families carrying brown paper bags in their arms. The hardest ones are usually those who are walking by themselves. She wonders where their path is taking them.
One of those singular individuals breaks off from the crowd and jumps atop the water fountain in the middle of the street. She knows where he hails from by the coloring of his hair. Even at this distance, and especially with the help of the last of the sun’s rays, she can see the slight color variations streaking through the man’s dark hair—like that of a raven’s feather. It matches the hair tickling below her nose.
“Oh no,” Shisui groans. Itachi leans forward over the metal guardrail, and from the corner of her eye she can see his mouth turn down into a frown. Sakura slightly pushes against Shisui’s shoulders, raising herself in order to get a better look. “You don’t think…”
Itachi’s voice is pained as he answers, “I have no doubt.”
The man on the fountain below brandishes something thin and metallic at the small crowd that had stopped to see what he was doing. Sakura squints, and realizes that he’s holding a flute. A small group of people drunkenly cheer from their position outside of a bar her father once told her to steer clear from. Like they’d even let me in! she remembers saying.
Shisui lets out a huff of laughter, then cups his hands around his mouth. “Show us what you’ve got, Hideyo-kun!” he shouts down towards the fountain, confirming that the man below really is one of Shisui and Itachi’s many relatives. Not recognizing the name, she stares harder, taking in what she can see. He’s too short for the man she’s looking for, she observes. And maybe too young, too.
With wide eyes, Sakura watches as Hideyo brings the flute to his mouth. There is a waning in noise as everyone waits, before a long, ethereal note pierces the air. She gasps. It’s amplified, somehow, and easily reaches Sakura despite their height above the crowd. As soon as the sound trails off, there is another pause. She can tell that Hideyo is teasing the crowd, letting them hang in the space between the last note and the possibility of the next one.
Finally, another note drifts through the air, rising, rising, and then dropping. It’s utterly beautiful. He pauses again, before he finally begins a song. It’s a familiar tune, likely something she’s heard before while walking around the village. She thinks it might be from a story about some type of creation, but the words escape her.
The Uchiha are like the songbirds of Konoha—it’s common to hear them singing while they’re out and about. One can’t walk past a training ground without hearing at least whistling. Shisui says it’s to help increase their lung capacity and breathing control for their fire jutsu, but she sometimes thinks they do it just for fun. Not all of them sing, of course, but the ones who don’t usually gravitate towards some type of wind instrument, like the man below them.
Sakura glances to the side. And like Itachi, too. But Itachi apparently doesn’t practice anymore. He’s supposed to be a genius in fire jutsu, or something. He says Sasuke will be a genius too, but she hasn’t heard Sasuke sing or play anything at all during the few times she has ever seen him outside of the Academy.
The beat suddenly gets faster, bringing her attention back down. Then faster still, playing in a way she’s never heard before. A small group of people loudly whoop below, partnering off to dance, drinks held in the air as they spin and switch partners. Her fingers tap excitedly against Shisui’s shoulders.
“I didn’t know the flute could sound like this!” Sakura exclaims, jumping from Shisui’s back to land on the roof. Squeezing in between the two Uchiha, she leans against the rail, bouncing on her toes.
“I, too, never imagined that one could play it in such a manner,” Itachi mutters from her side.
A laugh bubbles out from her. “It’s so good!” She cheers along with the crowd, and their energy feels like a physical weight. It wraps around her and flows through her. It feels like one of those Capital-M Moments that Shisui is always talking about. One that becomes a memory that can’t be forgotten. She watches the shinobi down below as they dance together. Turns and smiles towards Shisui as she bounces to the music. He’s smiling back at her, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. They’re far away, despite the fact that he’s looking right at her.
That’s been happening a lot lately. And it scares her. He doesn’t scare her, of course, but she is scared for him. Her parents—and especially her granny—have never shied away from telling her about the horrors of becoming a shinobi. There’s probably plenty of bad things that she doesn’t know about, too. And she may be young, but she’s not stupid. She knows Shisui is talented. She knows he’s strong. And only those who are strong and talented are sent on the Big Missions. The ones that end in someone dying.
But it’s like what the Academy always tells them: the village will help the shinobi who return. And Shisui is always quick to come back. He had gotten onto her plenty of times over her worrying about him too much, anyways. Now, Sakura knows better than to overtly show her concern.
His eyes lose their unfocused quality, and she turns away, as if she hadn’t noticed anything at all.
At some point during her inattentiveness, Itachi’s expression had morphed from pained embarrassment—likely from knowing the burgeoning street performer at all—to something akin to being absolutely scandalized—likely from the manner in which the flute was being played. No one else would probably see the emotion on the stoic teenager’s face, but Shisui had taught her Itachi’s micro-expressions well. She laughs at him, then copies a dance move she saw someone else doing a moment ago. She doesn’t think she’s doing it right, but she hears Shisui laugh behind her, and thinks that she accomplished exactly what she wanted.
She feels a tap on her shoulder, and she turns. Shisui’s hand is held out between them, and she looks excitedly down at it. “Care to dance with me, Sakura-chan?” he asks. She takes it immediately, and he spins her until she’s so dizzy that she’s tripping over her own feet. They’re all laughing, even Itachi, though he hides it by looking away. The air turns blissfully cool around them as the sun dips lower, and she’s thankful for the breeze that blows her hair away from her face.
Just as quickly as the music started, it stops, and the crowd below groans. Sakura spins to a stop, hanging onto Shisui’s arm as the world continues to whirl around her. “Aww,” she complains, panting. “Why’d he stop?” Looking over the rail, she sees three Uchiha in their police uniforms beside Hideyo. One is waving the crowd on, while the other two have their hands on their hips, obviously talking to the younger man. She can’t see their expressions from here, but she can tell he’s not really in trouble when one of the Uchiha reaches out to ruffle his hair and push him away from the fountain.
“Dang,” Shisui says, “I was hoping he’d get to finish his song before they stopped him. C’mon.” He looks down at her before turning and crouching. Eager to rest her legs, she hops on and wraps her arms around his neck. “Some people just don’t appreciate—oh?” Before Shisui can fully rise, he pauses, then tilts forward. Sakura yelps at the change in position, feeling as if she’ll slide right over his head.
“Look, Sakura-chan!” he says when he stands up and the world is righted for her yet again. He holds money in front of her face, waving three bills right in front of her nose. They’re crumpled and damp, and he puts them away before she can recognize the amount of each bill. Hiking her up higher, he sing-songs, “My lucky charm strikes again, and she goes by the name of Sakura-chan!”
Her face burns. “Stop it, Shisui,” she whines, hiding her expression in the space between his shoulder and neck. He knows how she feels about that nickname. The first time he had called her his lucky charm had been when the sweet old lady at the dango stand gave them extra sweets for free. Then it was when he won the prize she had pointed to during the first Summer Festival they attended together. After that, any time something good happened to Shisui, he always attributed it to her doing.
Shamelessly laughing, he asks, “How do you think those got all the way up here? Had to have been a shinobi, right?” She feels his head shift as he turns his attention upwards. “We’ve still got enough light. Wanna go throw some kunai before we take you back home?”
Bolting upright, embarrassment forgotten, Sakura shouts an enthusiastic, “Yes!”
Itachi shakes his head in her periphery. "Not tonight. I promised to help Sasuke with his fire jutsu."
Neither Sakura nor Shisui argue with the other Uchiha. Anyone with eyes can tell how much Itachi cares for his younger brother. Any time she has seen the two out together, she's always reminded of a hen and baby chick—Sasuke being the chick, burrowing into the metaphorical feathers of the older Uchiha. Her first encounter with Sasuke had featured him peeking out from behind his older brother's legs at her. He was surprisingly popular for someone so shy.
"Ah, maybe next time then. See you soon, little cousin," Shisui nods towards Itachi, who nods back before disappearing in a blur as he speeds off towards the Uchiha district. "Alright," he addresses her as he hikes her up higher on his back. "Which training ground should we visit this time?"
"The one with the pond!"
"The one that's the furthest away from us? You just want me to run again, don't you?"
"No," she draws out, unconvincingly, then giggles as he turns his head to look at her from the corner of his eye. They flash a brilliant red.
She wiggles her feet in excitement.
Shisui laughs at her. "You have no fear, do you Sakura-chan? Now hold on tight, I don't want my lucky charm fluttering away."
With a single step, they flash across the sky.