Fanfiction: Shedding Skin

Life on the streets were hard. No one had the heart to care about someone who couldn’t help themselves, someone who was needy. People thought with their heads and not their hearts because people didn’t have hearts and so they didn’t care. Not for the children who were orphaned, not the old who were useless and especially not the woman and men who were a waste of space.

Maybe it was because war had hit some villages harder than others and only the strong were welcomed and accepted, or maybe it was just that with everything that people saw in the last war, that the starving, homeless and sick did not affect them in the same way that it would affect others. Not when everyone was starving, homeless and sick. That didn’t matter though, the why. No, what mattered was that there was need in some of the villages and only the strong survived while the rest died.

Still, there was a way. There was always a way to outsmart everyone and to come out on top, to claw your way up from the bottom. It was hard and it was a dirty job that often made you feel sick when you thought about what you did, what you’d have to do. The world was heartless but if you used your head and threw away your morals anything was possible. It was possible for an orphan girl to become famous, to become rich and to become fearsome.

But that was in another time and in another place, in Konohagakure it was different. And so a girl could grow into a wife, into a mother and into a kind woman. She could move on from all those bad things seen and done in that other time and place and live contently in this one. Only it would be something she could never forget. No matter how long had passed. Things like that stained a person so deeply it could not be just washed away, only hidden behind closed doors, only swept under the rug, still there just not seen. But Mebuki was an expert at hiding things and so no one knew the stains were there. And no one ever would. Unless she showed them and that, was simply unlikely.

***

Mebuki worried, not that it showed. Her mask was made of porcelain, painted with a small smile and kind eyes. Fragile and delicate, yet in actuality it was made of steel that was near impossible to break. Inside however, inside where she was free to be herself, she worried. Sakura, her beautiful daughter wanted to be a ninja. She wanted to dive into the dark underground world of which Mebuki had spent years trying to claw herself out of. Though Mebuki was never a shinobi of any kind she had lived a large portion of her life in that world and had not only survived. She had thrived, she ruled, she had met those stronger than her and came out on top. Not using any fancy ninja techniques, but with her only weapon being her mind sharpened by her wit and her experiences gained with misfortune.

Sakura had no such mind, she was smart, yes, but not in the way that someone needed to be to live in the underworld and she had no misfortunes to gain experience from. In short, she was completely unsuited to be a shinobi. Still, as the first and second years at the ninja academy passed and Sakura excelled in the written aspects and she still was as determined to become a ninja, Mebuki knew she had to intervene. It was obvious that Konoha, being the softest and safest of all ninja villages, that they would not teach her what she needed. There was a reason why only those who had a clan name to fall back on came out on top in Konoha. There was not a list of dangerous and well known Konoha shinobi who did not have a clan name or was trained by someone who had one. Totally different from say Mizu who had more clanless shinobi then not.

However, if Mebuki were to teach her just how ugly and terrible the world was, it would irrevocably change Sakura and Mebuki was not sure if that change would be for the better or worse. So she worried under her mask, she hid the gnawed terror under bubbling laughter and carefree smiles. Soon though, the mask would be broken for Sakura and she would become that fearsome person again. Mebuki would take her sweet, soft, caring child away to make sure she learnt how horrible the world was, or to leave her as she was and have her die horribly because she was unprepared.

The decision was made as soon as Mebuki thought logically about it. She loved her daughter and she would not lose her, even if that meant that Mebuki had to shed her skin and become someone else to train her daughter. Because Sakura would survive the underworld and be the queen, even if it ruined Sakura. Mebuki would make sure of it.

The world is an terrible, ugly place and you have to be willing to be just as terrible to survive it.

***

Love was something beautiful. It was something that made impossible things possible. It gave hope and breathed joy, chasing darkness away with its warm light. But it did also have a terribleness of its own.

Mebuki loved her mother. She can still picture her even though it had been year since her mother’s passing. Twenty three to be exact. Mebuki was seven at the time and sometimes, in the stillness of quiet Sunday mornings, the memory is almost strong enough that she could reach out and touch her mother.

Her hair was spun gold straw, long and thick, falling down her back in soft waved. Her eyes, the beautiful blue that they were, sparkled like clear ponds on a sweltering summers day. And her smile. He smile was the best part of her. Her lips were full but when she smiled they thinned and became all too thin. Almost disappearing and making way for her beautiful straight pearly whites.

It was as if her whole body lit up with pure joy when she smiled and seven year old Mebuki’s deepest desire was that her mother would smile at her. Just once, just for a second, not by accident, not because she was pretending but a true smile. Just one smile to show Mebuki that her mother loved Mebuki as much Mebuki love her mother.

It never happened though, not the smile and not the love. Mebuki was a in a terrible accident and her mother couldn’t stand it. Wait, no-Mebuki was a terrible accident and her mother couldn’t stand her. It hurt to know this, to know that Mebuki loved a woman so much who did not care about her but it made her stronger and helped her to learn some very important lesson that she doesn’t think she could have survived without learning.

“Kaa-san.” My voice was soft as I approached with a wariness aware that one wrong more or wrongly said thing could end with me on the floor.

“What is it?” She turned with that familiar sneer.

“Fujioka-sama is here.”

She left without another word to me.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself. I knew what I was suppose to do when Fujioka-sama was here. I was supposed to hide. The Fujioka clan head that came to our house every week and they would stay in oka-san’s work room for hours before Fujioka-sama left and okaa-san left.

The few times that Fujioka-sama was there with okaa-san and I get to see their interactions were the best though because I got to see a rare sight. My okaa-san’s smile. It was such a rare sight and the aching want to see it was what drove me to creep towards the work room instead of away from it.

I crept over the boards I knew squeaked heart pounding as I grew closer. The rice paper door stood before me and I realised that the door was open just enough for me to peek in. I glanced in and saw my prize.

There, laying across my mother’s lips was that ever elusive smile. The tension in my body melted away as I stared at it completely content…until the smile was blocked by Fujioka-sama. His lips to be more persist, because they were now slanted across my mothers. I fell back in shock right onto one of the creaky floorboards.

The next few things happened so quickly, I heard a bang from inside the room before the screen rice paper door was thrown open and Fujioka-sama shot out the door, by mother quick to follow him to try to make her stay. But the front door slammed close and Fujioka-sama was gone and then okaa-san was standing in front of me glaring down at me.

“I didn’t mean to kaa-san. Please forgive me.”

“You’ll learn.” Her eyes twinkled maliciously as her hands dug deep into my short hair and pulled me behind her. “I’ll teach you.”

“Kaa-san.” Sakura’s voice was soft and shy like always.

“What is it?”

“I was trying to make rice balls but they didn’t come out right.” Her bottom lip jutted out as if she was about to cry.

“You’ll learn.” I tell her with a smile as I run my fingers through her short hair. “I’ll teach you.”