Darkest Before Dawn

Flinch

   By the end of Sasuke's third year at the Academy, Fugaku could say that he was quite pleased with the people his youngest son had befriended. One was his eccentric best friend/rival, Naruto Namikaze, and the other- Sakura Haruno. Sakura was a very good person to have as an ally no doubt about it. Although Fugaku was sure none of the students or the teachers knew of her prodigial talents, he couldn't turn a blind eye to her. Not when she could affect anyone around her.

   Take Itachi, for example.

   Just last year, Itachi had been acting rather strange. He had been avoiding meetings, not looking his parents in the eye, and so on and so forth. But the more Sakura frequented herself around him, he had returned to normal, no incident. She was a good influence on him whether he knew so or not. Fugaku took a sip of his tea and stared out of the window. Sasuke, Naruto, and were out training.

   He was somewhat adverse about letting three nine year olds practice throwing kunai alone. They were on the opposite side fo the village from where the compound was, and it was gettng late. So as Mikoto finished cleaning up after dinner, Fugaku stepped out of the house and kept a considerable amount of distance behind the trio of kids.

   One thing he noticed was that Naruto and Sasuke did all of the throwing and bickering while Sakura sat on the sidelines and merely observed. She was surprisingly calm and didn't seem to be on guard at all. It took Fugaku a few seconds before he saw it.

   It was a bunshin.

   He walked away from the training grounds and tried to locate Sakura. After scoping around with his sharingan, he found her in a different clearing about a mile away. Fugaku let the red fade from his eyes and shunshinned to a branch above the scene. What he saw made his mind go blank.

   A man- a lightning shinobi- was pinned to a tree with his hands and stomach impaled with a single katana. Sakura was sitting crosslegged on the grass, polishing shuriken. She held it to the moonlight, smiled at its shine, and threw it at the man's shoulder.

   "Are you going to tell me now?" she questioned cheerily. The shinobi spat to the side and glowered at the small girl, but said nothing. Her smile grew as she chucked another shuriken, this time hitting his thigh. Fugaku flinched.

   "Does it surprise you?"

   The Uchiha looked to his left at Ibiki who had suddenly appeared.

   "Her capability, I mean." Ibiki clarified, "Her potential steers towards the darker side of the shinobi, well, not that there's a lighter side, but you know what I mean."

   Fugaku looked back to the clearing and crossed his arms.

   "I'm not going to lie- it does. I wasn't aware that she is able to do something like this with a smile on her face." he answered quietly. Ibiki crouched and watched as Sakura pulled out a sixth kunai, this time aiming for the left thigh. God, what was this man? A dart board?

   "It's not the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. When she kills people, she smiles. There's no helping it."

   Down below, a vein popped on Sakura's head. She was growing increasingly aggravated with his inability to cooperate. She threw another shuriken at his shoulder. He said nothing, causing her to snap. She let her eyes grow darker and slowly pushed herself off the floor.

   "You think this is a fuckin' game? Huh?!" she growled. The foreigner's head shot up at the sudden change of voice, "Do you think I have enough patience to deal with you? It's been an hour, and you're starting to piss me the fuck off. So here's my deal. I give you one minute to tell me what you tried to achieve by trying to attack my friends. You tell me that, I'll let you leave with a sliver of your miserable life. If I can't pry open your mouth, I'll pry open your chest cavity. Your pick."

   Fugaku blinked and looked at the head interrogator.

   "Her demeanor... does this happen often?"

   Ibiki shook his head.

   "No. I've only seen her like this once before."

   They quieted down again and watched Sakura's split personality take over. Sakura stood there with her arms crossed for a full thirty seconds, unmoving. The next thirty seconds after that, poision-tipped senbon had been stabbed at every available space on his next. The second ticked by like hours as the man tried to hold back his agonized filled screams. All the while, the girl inspected her nails.

   Finally, it had been a whole minute. Sakura scoffed and whipped out a kunai.

   "Wrong choice."

   The life left him with the snap of her small fingers. She collected all of her weapons and walked away from the mutilated body.

   "I'll leave the clean up to you, sensei." she called out, "Oh, and good evening to you, Fugaku-sama!"

   Fugaku and Ibiki stared at her as she disappeared in a cloud of ash-ridden smoke. She was truly remarkable. Deadly, but remarkable.