The Chain

Sweet Dreams

Present Day...

"Leaf to Sarah... you've veered off course and you're about to run into the moon, over!"

Sarah blinked as the memory that had swam over her had completely taken her out of the office she was currently sitting in across from her friend and agent, Neo Hyūga.  Unlike most in the Hyūga Clan, Neo's eyes were a brilliant shade of green as she was only half Hyūga.  Her hair, though, was just as dark as any other clan member.  She also had a visual ability, but it was different than others in her clan.  Like Sarah, she had chosen to not pursue the life of a Shinobi and had gone into the business sector instead.

She was one hell of a literary agent and was her front-line defense against anyone finding out that she was the erotica author, O. R. Uzumaki.  She was currently being herald as the new Jiraiya of writing.  She would not nearly be as successful if they knew it was a woman who had written the very spicy novels instead of a man as everyone assumed.  Everyone was trying to find out who the author really was, and Neo was the perfect person for the task as gatekeeper.  She had no problem telling someone to "fuck off" if they got too pushy.  Then there was what she could do with her eyes.  Fools would find themselves wandering around aimlessly having lost a couple of hours by the time she was done with them if they really crossed the line.  Even the publishing company didn't know who she really was as all payments went first to Neo's Writing Agency who would then distribute them to her.  Complete autonomy, just the way Sarah wanted it.

It wasn't like people could find out that she was the one who wrote such spicy books.  She had two children to think of and protect.  Her oldest, Orion, was an adult but as a Shinobi he would be humiliated if his peers knew what his mother did for a living.  Not to mention what would happen if the villagers knew she had written those, all hell would break loose and she could possibly lose her youngest, Phoenix, due to their backwards thinking on what women should and should not do.  Unless you were a Shinobi, then it didn't matter what the fuck you did as a woman.  What a crazy ass double standard.  Her mouth thinned.  Technically, she was a Shinobi.  She had graduated the Academy and had even made Chūnin before resigning from the position.

Her parents had a meltdown that day.  Thirteen years old and she was tossed out of the house with nothing to her name because she had refused to be a Shinobi professionally.  Melissa and her parents had let her stay with them until she had got a job at a bookstore and was able to rent a room of her own.  She wondered not for the first time if she wouldn't have had Orion at the young age of sixteen if she had still been with her parents.  It was a moot point, they had both been killed the night of the Nine Tails attack... the same night Orion was conceived.  Sarah was ashamed to say that she hadn't even known Orion's father's real name until the end of the Fourth Shinobi War.  She almost covered her face as the thought went through her mind.  She had to stop thinking about the past.  It was dead and gone.

"What in the world are you even thinking about?  God, please tell me you haven't been daydreaming about him again, have you?" Neo then said with a slight smirk.  "It's bad enough that you've based the protagonist in all your books after him, which by the way some people have figured out now.  The publisher has been inundated with letters and calls about that since your fourth book released."

Sarah leaned back with a laugh, "No, I wasn't daydreaming about him again... per say.  I was actually remembering something from when I was a kid."

"If memory serves, you were in the same class as him."

She rolled her eyes, "Yes, that is true, and he was part of that memory, but I was not daydreaming."  She shifted her gaze away from Neo to look out the window towards the faced mountains, "Did I ever tell you he was the one that gave me the idea to be a writer?  I was already writing and everything, but it never occurred to me that I could be a writer.  All I was ever told was that I was going to be a Shinobi."