COTE x Naruto: New Beginnings

Prequel

Sakura stared glumly at the blob of something on her plate; already 5 days since being cooked, the rice with chicken meat and seaweed didn't look particularly inviting, especially as this would be the fifth time Sakura was going to eat the thing.

She missed her mother. Haruno Mebuki knew exactly how to make the few cooking ingredients lying around the house into something tasteful. But her mother was once again gone for work, and she would not be returning within a month.

Ever since Sakura's father, Haruno Kizashi, left the family without a word, living expenses for the Haruno family have been harder to cover than ever before. It was so bad that their landlord had evicted them almost twice for not paying the bills on time.

As a result of the sudden absence of one stream of income, Sakura's mother was pushed to work even harder than she had before, yet it didn't seem to be enough.

Sakura tried making some cash as well, but as a student with no degree in anything as of yet, the few jobs she could do either required her to be time flexible - which as a student wasn't easily done - or they paid very little.

Sakura dug into her dinner, her stomach rumbling painfully. There wasn't much food left around the house, and she knew she had to save it; this blob of rice was her first meal of the day, and Sakura's body still wasn't that used to going without food for long.

Sure, it had been years since her father left, but never before was there as little food to eat as there was now.

Her mother wasn't doing too well at her job lately, and it began showing. Sakura always felt hungry, but she didn't want to bother her mother and ask for more food. They were barely meeting ends as it was.

One more instance of missed rent, and Sakura was certain the owner of the apartment complex her mother and she had moved into would evict them.

But food, or lack thereof, wasn't the only thing that bothered Sakura. She was almost 16, and for most Japanese teens her age, that meant continuing their studies at a highschool they were accepted to.

Right now, Sakura already went through the application process and completed all the corresponding exams. She was only waiting for the results.

And she felt quite nervous. After years of living in certain conditions, and seeing how insane it was to bridge the gap between poor and middle class, Sakura had sort of lost hope in things being better. She'd thought about applying for a med school and becoming a doctor, which would make her family financially stable without a doubt, but after seeing how much all med schools cost, she'd given up.

Younger Sakura would've dreamed of attending a university and studying medicine there before becoming a doctor and helping people, but older Sakura, after a lifetime of disappointment, was much more jaded.

So a few months ago, when she'd been struggling with the question of which highschool she should choose, and whether it mattered at all, she'd been very surprised when one day, while browsing the web, she'd stumbled upon a school that sounded too good to be true.

Attending the school was free, which wasn't overly unique as all public schools were free. But what made it different was that it wasn't really a public school. Actually, it was a government-funded boarding high school.

The Advanced Nurturing Highschool. One of the only highschools and universities in the world that boasted the ability to get you any job or further education you could wish for, and it was completely free.

She'd been sceptical at first. Surely, it was for genius people only, and although Sakura was very smart and would under normal circumstances be able to apply for schools like these and have a strong chance of getting accepted, she knew she had the huge disadvantage of a lack of resources over the other kids that applied to top schools like this.