Daddy's Little Monster

Uncertain beginnings

~Sakura, age 12~

Konoha was about how she imagined it would be, Blue skies, greenery everywhere, and smiling faces that seemed to be far away from the reality of the world. Jiraiya was smiling brightly as they entered and grabbed her hand as he rambled on about all of the amazing stops and the shops they could go to before he was pulling her into a weapons shop and she rolled her eye with a fond smile as he bought her a plethora of new weapons to put in her pouch and a sharpener for her katana. Getting her new mesh shirts and her favorite baggy pants.

"And after the Ramen stand we can go to the monument and after that we can-"

"Jiraiya!" He stalled at the man calling out to him and smiled slightly pulling Sakura a little closer.

"Minato." He greeted with a smile.

"Is that," Minato grinned when he saw Sakura. "Sakura-chan, you've grown into quite the beautiful young lady." She eyed him suspiciously before looking up at her dad.

"Sakura, this is my old student, Minato Namikaze, he's the Hokage."

"I met you when you were just a baby.' He smiled and Sakura nodded in respect.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Hokage-sama." He smiled in slight endearment as she bowed her head respectfully.

"Oh Sakura-chan no need to be so formal," He chuckled, "You're part of the family after all." She frowned, confused and looked to her dad. "Your dad is my son's godfather." She blinked and nodded.

"Oh."

"So Sakura are you planning on joining the academy?" She tilted her head in confusion.

"Why would I? I already know how to fight." Jiraiya ruffled her hair with a roll of his eyes.

"The reason people join the academy is so they can graduate and become a ninja." She frowned.

"But I am a ninja." He sighed.

"I mean a ninja with a paying job tied to their home." She still looked fairly confused.

"Konoha isn't my home. This is my first time being here." Minato held back the frown and Jiraiya nodded.

"I know."

"So I assume being tied to a village means that traveling when you want is out of the question and once you get to the higher ranks you're basically trapped in the village because of confidentiality reasons until you get a mission that lets you out of the village. Am I correct?" Sakura inquired looking at Minato who chuckled almost nervously.

"Well that's not quite-" she rolled her eye and shook her head.

"I apologize sir but that wouldn't be the life for me."

"Sakura," She looked down at the stern tone. "That was very rude." She shrugged eye still down.

"I was being truthful." He sighed.

"We'll talk about it later. For now why don't you go explore. I need to talk to Minato about something." Sakura nodded and he ruffled her hair. "I'll meet you at the hotel." She nodded.

"Okay... see you later."

Sakura sighed and walked through the streets of the village beginning to despise the cheery atmosphere more and more. It was like the entire village was covered in this shroud of ignorance. Everyone was so blissfully happy, even the ninja that she saw. No one had their guard up and it was almost sickening to her how everyone fell willingly into the false safety. Everything around her just felt suffocating. Sickening. She hated it all. These people in their safe little walls that had no clue what the real world was like. Her breathing was beginning to get shallow and she went toward the trees as fast as she could. Coming upon a clearing away from people and taking a shaky breath.