Chapter Text
She sits at her desk. She is in the very back, it keeps her back to the wall.
She is trying to pay attention to her sensei. She is, she promises. He is drowning on about the effect of the war, the political effect mostly. He tried to call on her, attempted to have her speak about her time on the field. She had stared at him blankly before he moved on.
She knew better then to say a word of what she had seen during her time on the field. Especially with almost 7 clan heirs in her class and the hokages only son. All of whom had been kept from the war. Because of course they had. We can't have the future of the prestigious clans die on the field. Not like how so many their age had. Not like she almost had over a dozen times.
Their hands are clean, their smiles bright. Their hands are smothe, with barely any calluses. She's knows they think she's weird. She hears the whispers about how she always seems to sit at attention, how she can spar with few, not because of her lack of skill, no, it is because if the wrong move is done by the wrong person, she dips back into the war, she goes for cheap, brutal shots. She aims to kill, and almost has.
Needless to say she is not allowed to spar the hokages son. Her instructors fear she may hurt him to much. The Uchiha boy and Hyuuga heir are the two she beats almost every time. She is not made to spar often.
The kids are to soft. They almost never go in for a kill. If there is one thing she learned it is that you always go for the kill. You can't hesitate on the field. Some of the instructors call her to harsh with her blows. They say to try and relax. Those that fought on the field, that have seen her covered in blood, head to toe, just nod and tell her where to correct her form.
She likes those teachers most. The ones that were on the field not but 8 months ago. The ones who understand her struggle to adjust. She knows the war ended 8 months ago. She know she got home 3 months ago. She know that being in this class is ment to help her adjust. She understands it all. That doesn't help her.
It doesn't help her need to scrub herself clean until her skin is red and raw, convinced she is still dirty from the blood of enemy nin. It doesn't help her care about her hair, or the Uchiha boy every girl, and some of the boys, seem to all blush at. It doesn't help her smile or not go for what some would call a cheap shot.
They say you should have honor when sparing. Her honor died the first day she killed an enemy after watching a girl she grew up with down the street be killed with a broken neck by a man 3 times her size. The girl had been 6. They were the same age. She had used his distraction to stab him in the back of his knee. Once he fallen, she slit his neck. It had been hard to do. He died screaming, just as the girl had. The blood that gushed out of his neck had gotten all over the girl he killed. She thinks her name was Hirin, she can't quite remember much of her, she played with her many times, she laughed and smiled with her. She watched her die, scared, screaming for him to just let her go.
She had thrown up that day. She hadn't even gotten to wash off the man's blood for 3 weeks. It has gotten sticky, then flakey. Her first ever kill. Followed by many, many more. Her official file had around 42 confirmed kills. The number was absolutely higher. She and everyone else had lost count.
She had been drafted 4 months after her 6th birthday. She had gotten back to the village and re-enrolled in the academy 2 months after her 12 birthday. She was on missions for every single birthday since she was 6.
She refocused on what Iruka was saying. He was on morality rates. He had focused on the adults. How many had to be sent out. He had tried to skirt around the mortality rates of the children sent out.
He was a good man, trying to keep what kids he could mentally sound. However Sakura has been covered head to toe in her fellow children's blood, sent out to die one after another, and not just on her side. She has killed enemy nin that were younger than her many times.
Her eyes wore a hole into the man's back. He turned ever so slightly and made the tiniest bit of eye contact with her, he then cleared his throat and checked a piece of paper on his desk before writing out the child morality rate she knew by heart.
The other children murmured about, not knowing what this statistic was. He had yet to say it out loud. She kept her eyes focused on him. Waiting to see how he would baby them. He decided to rip off the bandaid. She found it almost laughable.
"This was the percentage of children below 16 that were drafted and died." Iruka sensei announced. He and I had a bit of a staring contest as the other's processed what they had never known. What would never touch them as clan heirs.
Some glanced back at her. She ignored their stares. Iruka then dismissed them for lunch. She let everyone leave the room before her, including Iruka sensei.