Fight (a Naruto reborn fanfiction)

🍂🥀 XV 🥀🍂

I hope you enjoy this chapter.

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Himari doesn't introduce Orichimaru and Jiraiya to each other for a while. She shares her free time between them and trains when neither are watching. Just some katas, easy jutsus and chakra control.

Her fifth birthday comes and goes, even though she doesn't celebrate it. The academy will begin soon and she has every intent to take her sweet time and graduate with everybody else. What use is it to destroy the opportunity to be in the same year as the Sanin?

"Orichimaru!" she shouts, waving at the boy. They always meet at the playground to talk or play. Orichimaru enjoys playing in the sand, and it's something that can be very fun, even for her. They are building sandcastles, engrossed into the contest until someone approaches them.

Himari knows that there are some Senjus nearby, guarding something, but she didn't judge it important enough to worry about it. Clearly, that was a mistake, as she is now presented with an angry Tsunade stomping to their corner of the sandpit.

"Get out."

Is what the princess says, looking at them with a conflicted expression.

"Why would we? This is a public playground as far as I know, everyone is allowed to play here."

Tsunade scoffs and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

"Do you know who I am? I'm the granddaughter of the Hokage and I want you to go away! I wanted to play in this corner!"

Orichimaru, not yet as impassive and thick-skinned as his older self, goes to pull at Himari's sleeve.

"Maybe we can just play another time and let her play..."

"Why? I don't care who she is, but we were here first and she has to accept that."

The princess stomps her foot on the ground, stirring up sand which lands onto Himari's shoes. She smiles at Tsunade, a passive-aggressive smile that is not relenting even as the little girl begins to cry in frustration. Guards rush over to comfort her but she shoos them away, wiping her face.

"As you can see, we were building castles before you interrupted us. You can help us if you want, but it's dumb that we have to leave. The sand here is just as good as anywhere else.", Himari offers, not wanting to upset the girl.

That seems to satisfy her and she sits down, scraping together bits of sand and molding it into a tower.

"I'll build the best castle you've ever seen, just you wait!", she proclaims and not even five minutes later, their argument is forgotten. Orichimaru seems to be okay with the whole ordeal and Himari counts that as an absolute win.

She has befriended all three Sanin not even four months after entering the village, something she never even considered to be possible. But it's fine, because all of this is only temporary. The three of them will form a team full of geniuses, rising above the rest like a phoenix from the ashes.

And isn't that ironic, to compare them to a phoenix while not even mentioning herself. She will form a team with randos, people who will die before she can blink twice. It's not like she wants to stay in this village forever either, so it's the best possible outcome if they forget her. But that will not happen for another year and she will enjoy this while she can.

That child-like innocence they emit, because that's what they are. Children, untainted by the war and not yet twisted with grief and regret as she is. She can only hope they don't grow onto her too much, because she doesn't think she could push them away.

She stops those thoughts entirely, focusing on nothing but the cool sand underneath her fingers. The future is not now and she can worry enough later. And if she ends up using a bit of chakra to make her sand stick together better and wins their little contest, that's no one's business but hers.

This is how Tsunade sees it:

Many kids try to be her friends, try to get her to favour them with hopes of receiving perks or a higher social standing. She doesn't like them at all, not when their intentions are so clear. She wants friends to cherish her for who she is, not for who her grandfather is.

When she sees two children playing in the sandpit, entirely unaffected by her presence, her interest is peaked. Initially, she thinks the girl is rude and the boy is shy, but she couldn't have been more wrong.

"I don't care who she is, but we were her first and she has to accept that." They're words she has never heard before, because everyone cares about who she is, that's just something she takes for granted. She's frustrated by the answer, so much that she begins to cry.

But the girl doesn't try to comfort her; instead, she just offers to let her play with them or go somewhere else. The desire to win their little competition to show them what she can do is strong, so she sits down and build.

They talk a lot while building, about food and animals and the academy. And even if Himari, that's the white-haired girls name, ends up winning with a castle that should realistically collapse at any given moment, Tsunade can't bring herself to get mad again.

She decides then and there that they are going to be friends forever.

The next day, she nearly misses her two new friends. They are sitting in the shade, talking about something she can't understand until she is closer and when she is, it's still gibberish to her. They are discussing books of all things, those things her great uncle likes more than anything. Complicated words are dropped like they're nothing, stuff like advanced chakra-theory, anatomy and references to stuff she hasn't even heard of.

It dawns upon her that maybe, the things they talked about the day before are not things they normally discuss. When Himari spots, her she waves with a smile and Orichimaru copies her. The topic changes and soon enough, they are talking about stuff Tsunade can understand again.

Himari doesn't show up at the playground on wednesday and as Tsunade asks Orichimaru why, he says that she has another friend who needs much of her attention. She can't let that slide, Tsunade decides.

Himari vehemently denies her friends meeting, but she lets it slip that the boy also plans to attend the academy and that he's the same age. That's fine then, she thinks, because they will meet him soon anyway.

Tsunade is happy that she has found friends that will be ninjas as well. She is happy that Orichimaru shares secrets with her and she is happy that Himari gifts her a self-made stuffed animal of a cat as a belated birthday gift. It's nice to have all of this, she thinks.

She even held Himari's hand when they walked to a shop once and for a moment, it seemed as if nothing existed except the three of them. She has no idea how she managed to live without them in the past.

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Was the last paragraph unnecessary and entirely self-indulgent because I want friends who hold my hand in public without being embarrased? Yes. Do I care? No.

We're getting some progress in the next chapter my lovelies! I bet you can't figure out who Himaris team mates will be, but I can give you two hints. It's not the Sanin and canonical age is just a sugesstion I have no interest in following.

This was mostly fluff I think, except for Himari being, well... Himari. But don't you worry, she doesn't even know what hit her when agreeing to become these little cuties friend. Them forgetting her? About as possible as a sparkling unicorn fart in the wild.

Naruto is Kishimoto's toy, I'm just playing with it.