FicWad

Children could be cruel when they wanted to be. Their prefect, loving world is set in stone by what their parents set as the standards called 'normal'. Children cling to these words to build their knowledge of how the world was until they are old enough to really think about what they do and are told. Children after all, take their parents words to heart and carve them into their minds as the law of how the world works. However, anything, or anyone that does not fit their semblance of normalcy was a threat to them and who they viewed everything. An enigma of uncertainty that the children feared would break their fragile view of the world. And at school this was put to the test with so many young children who think they know what's right clashed or create friendship that started with similar views and rules.

Haruno Sakura learned at eight years old that she was the enigma in a tightly bonded 3rd grade class. An anomaly of naturally pink hair and expressively bright green eyes, her flustered outward appearance a bright and obvious contrast to the subdued hues and natural colored hair of the other students with normal sized foreheads.

Sakura remembered well the day she walked into the classroom as her homeroom teacher beckoned her inside. The school year had already started by the time Sakura and her parents packed up and left Suna for Konoha because of her father's business transfer and her mother's government job. It was a month or so into the school years where children would have already picked out their friends. As green eyes scanned the starring classroom of her future school mates under her long bangs that hid her forehead she wished desperately that her friend Garaa was here with big sister Temari to back her up.

Their stares burned her.

Sakura hated being the center of attention; people always started at her with weird eyes that told her they didn't like her hair or thought her forehead was as big as a billboard. She swallowed a lump in her throat and wished she could go home. But Iruka-sensei had other ideas and after introducing her as Sakura who moved to Konoha from Suna and should be given a warm welcome to their class. He then asked if they had any questions.

Sakura remembered them all.

Is your hair real?

Show us your eyes!

Are you gonna cry?

Did you know you look like an alien?

The whole class laughed like it was all one big inside joke that she came from Mars or something. Sakura blinked back tears all day. The laughing only stopped when Iruka-sensei got fed up with it, at the end of the day he told her if she ever had anymore issues with the class to go to him and he would set them straight.

Like she could do that. Then they would just make fun of her more because they knew it got to her.

~S~

A week after the first of December was little Sakura's interaction with the first girl that took an interest in her. Her name is Yamanaka Ino and she was left trying to cheer the green eyed child up after a particular nasty remark from another girl during recess.

Their interaction was awkward to say the least, mostly with Sakura swallowing sobs and Ino rubbing her back.

That day the two had lunch together with Shikamaru and another boy named Chouji. Ino, with her short blonde hair brushed neatly behind her ears confidently named Sakura her best friend and anyone out to get her had to go through her first.

It was the happiest day of the pinkette's life. After that, school in Konoha elementary got just a little bit easier to deal with.

~S~

At the end of school one Friday marked the start of change in Sakura. The way she viewed the world and the things hidden inside it all exploded into consciousness the moment she met him.

Students filed out, running, jumping off the stairs, and walking to their friends to discuss weekend plans. Sakura herself had been in the midst of wondering what time her parents would be home, if at all, to eat dinner together at their favorite restaurant where she got to wear pretty dress's.

It only took a second for all stops to cease and a cold hiver to run down her spine. Her shoulders hunched up closer to her and she stiffened. Whenever she felt those cold shivers was always out of some feeling of dread or fear of knowing she was being watched. It became a common feeling around her classmates. Self consciously pink hair flitted about as Sakura turned her head in search of a particularly mean child looking up at her. Even though she saw no one in particular the cold claws that raked her back through her jacket never ceased.

That was when worried spring green eyes fell prey to the prettiest creature she had ever seen.

Lungs stopped working for the eight year old as she stared up in wonder at the front gates of school where a figure leaned up nonchalantly up against the brick wall. Whether they were man or woman she didn't know, what she did know was that they practically glowed. It was soft and mostly unnoticeable if it were not for mysterious shimmers showing up against darkly colored clothes. Even from her distance she could tell the figure was tall though, like a tower, even taller than her father. And the prettiest long black hair fell down their shoulders and sparkled like a halo where it framed the creatures face. She couldn't see their eyes, it made her frown. But something was off that she could tell all the way from where she was…

She touched her ears, covered by soft pink tresses, their round tips. Green studied the shimmery creature at the gates with awe. Theirs poked through their dark fringe and ended in a point.

Sakura looked wide eyed at the children around her, how could none of them stop and stare at this impossibly pretty as a princess sparkle creature?! But no one stopped like she had. No one stared, shouted, or even noticed the person for a matter of fact.

Childish curiosity pushed the young girl closer. She wanted to look at them more, it was like a tug to her, an invisible pull as she slowly walked into the shadows of the brick wall. As she got closer more details became known to her, pale skin, thin lips, and a narrow jaw.

Pressing her hands to the edge of the wall to look over it in secret she thought what she was looking at was the real life image of the Princess Kaguya from her favorite story book. Her cheeks flushed pink as she stared, in the back of her mind she wondered how they could not have noticed her intense study of their intimidating yet inviting form. It took her a moment to finally realize it was a man since she could not see their face. The chest was flat and lithe with muscle; long fingers were attached to hands not as big, but similar to her fathers.

Later tonight when she looks back on this moment of what she was about to do will be blamed on her terrible sense of danger and overwhelming curiosity.

She reached out with a tiny hand buried in her bright red winter jacket.

Her hand became enveloped in the man's strange shimmer and tugged on the fabric of their black sweater. It had mahogany embroidery on the hem. The man tensed before a sound could even escape her plump child lips. His pale hand, cold and hard like marble swallowed her tiny one in a grasp so hard she flinches. It was then her worried green eyes turn up doe-like and afraid as sharp, dark depths stare down at her with silent surprise.

The sounds of the school yard disappeared around Sakura as the man stared at her and she at him. It was almost hypnotic the way his eyes kept her in place even as his grip on her wrist loosened. Cheeks flushed a darker, adorable shade of pink and wished the ribbon Ino gave her to tie her hair away from her face to disappear so she could hide away from this man-creatures terrifyingly hypnotic gaze. The little girl could not pull away from the hand that held her there. It scared the lass and she didn't know what to do because of it. What she could do though, was stare back wide eyed and trapped and hope he'd let her go.

Sakura noted the shimmer around his dark eyes was stronger.

"Are you a fairy?" she blurts out.

The man raises a fine brow and blinks before answering with a smile. She tilts her head curiously as something flashes in those dark and sparkly eyes. His eyes scare her too, but they are so pretty she doesn't try to look away.

"Why do you say that?" he asks back. Her free hand fiddles with her ears hidden behind her hair before pointing to his own pointed ones.

"I can see your ears!" she squeaks, again that surprised expression flashes across his face and his grip tightens.

"Why can't anyone else see your ears? Is it because you shine like you spilled glitter all over yourself?" she asks again and again, her curiosity over taking the fear and nervousness bubbling in her belly and scratching her back like claws.

"You ask many questions child." He points out as he lets her hand finally be free. The pretty mans shoulders relax and she smiles up at him sweetly.

"I'm sorry…" she offers, yet he shakes his head and moves that big hand with long fingers to her head. Her eyes close for a moment, then open to look back up at him questioningly.

"Ask away." He smiles.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

"Yes."

"Oh? Are they your sibling?"

"No."

"….Your ears—"

Sakura didn't seem to mind the one word answers she's received. Now she wanted an answer to the main question, however, a finger reached her mouth to press against it to silence her before she could ask again. The frown he gave her was strange.

"I am surprised you can see them."

"?" She blinked in response since he still covered her lips.

"You shouldn't be able to…I'm…'hiding' them."

"How?" she blinked.

He didn't grace the child with an answer.

"Hasn't your mother ever told you not to talk to strangers?" he warned. Sakura stiffened as she realized he had a point, and her mother really has told her that…yet somehow…

"You don't seem all that bad though?" she pondered out loud.

"Never assume…you don't know what sort of monsters lay beyond your sight."

There was a long silence before the man leaned down to stare closer into Sakura's wide bright eyes with a stoic look. He brought his hand back to her head before giving her a wicked smile if she ever saw one.

"You have very special eyes little girl."

She wanted to ask why that was, yet she couldn't seem to let words escape her. It felt like his own black orbs once again stilled her in place.

For a moment, Sakura thinks she see's red before she is forced to blink her dry eyes. The man is gone.

Sakura looks around her and finds the schoolyard completely empty. She gasps, confused at how much time had passed and runs the full ten minutes home and into her mother's arms.

As she hugs her mother and father as they tuck her into bed enigmatic shapes dance across the window her flower print drapes hang on either side of. Her parents do not notice them and she does not mention them.

They leave for bed and close her bedroom door behind them. Her petite form settles in her sweet smelling blanket and watches the odd and dazzling shapes that almost look like little people with wings dancing outside on her windowsill before late into the night sleep finally claims her.

~S~

More often than not Sakura began to notice an increase in unusual shapes dancing across her vision, then disappearing before she can focus on it. At first it was nothing but curiosity and amazement that no one else could see them but her. The little glowing balls, strangely colored fluttering wings, curly haired little boys with animal-like ears and tail that liked her lemon water her mother packed in her lunches sometimes. Sometimes she witness's them playing little pranks on her classmates.

She would watch in silent awe as a purple skinned creature with pupil-less eyes no smaller than the size of her palm tug a Ami's hair and giggle when she would smack the boy sitting behind her minding his own business.

Sakura sometimes, would silently giggle right along with the pretty creatures.

However, over time curiosity and awe twisted into worry and confusion. Sakura didn't understand why nobody else could see them. It scared her made her lonely when Ino or Chouji would ask what she was giggling about.

One day she decided to tell her three friends about it, about her encounter with the man as pretty as Princess Kaguya and as shimmering as the little creatures she sees. She confides in them when she starts to see more of the shimmery things and her worries.

Sakura cries when they believe her. Shikamaru stated there was no reason not to believe her just because they can't see them.

He called it her sixth sense.

Sakura didn't care what it was called and hugged them all with the biggest smile she had ever given them.

"You're the best friends I could ever ask for! I hope we stay together forever!"

Ino scoffs.

"Of course we will, I'm not letting you go Forehead-girl."

"This is an escalator school Sakura, we'll be in the same class for years." Shikamaru would roll his eyes.

Chouji would just laugh and laugh.

"Sakura, you can be so sentimental."

They laughed together this time, Sakura almost doesn't notice the tall, glittering man beyond some trees leading to the woods behind the school.

~S~

Sakura hid behind a tree deep in the woods behind the school. She could hear the final bell for classes to start; it was the last thing on her mind though as she sobbed into her hands violently. She squeazed her legs closer to her shacking frame wishing she could just disappear. Her knee bled, Ami pushed her down some stairs.

The bell stopped and she didn't care to wipe away her tears and head off to class where Ino was surely waiting for her. It just hurt so much. Ami hadn't stopped at pushing her, she had laughed and pointed, calling her all the names she hated.

'Alien!'

'Ugly!'

'Stop coming to school, no one wants to see your face!'

Her breath came in hard gasps as she shivered in the snow she sat in, the tears made her face colder in the winter wind.

Another sob and gust of wind racked her tiny frame with shivers and shutters.

Suddenly a footstep sounded in the snowy silence of the woods. She tensed, did Ami find her and come to torment her some more?

Sakura curled up tighter; refusing to look up as she wrapped her arms around her, her favorite red jacket was missing from her locker before she ran out.

"You shouldn't be so far from school." A soft male's voice murmured from in front of her. She flinched in sudden recognition as visions of a beautiful man with pointed ears appeared in her mind.

Footsteps moved closer and ruined the purity of the untouched snow just as she had when running from the school. Sakura sniffled and slowly looked up, eyes red rimmed and a watery green. Tears still streaked down her red cheeks as she stared at the shimmery man before her. His black eyes sucked her in and numbing her shivering body. All the girl could see was this strange and magical man whose ears no one else could see.

"What are you doing so far from your school?" he asked as he knelt down into the snow in his strange but pretty clothing. A cloak, dark as the blood that dripped from her knee where the skin broke as she fell, covered his glinting arm guard and an attached hood draped over his long and braided hair. His eyes wandered her curled up form and fell to her knee.

She watched his brow knit.

"Someone was mean to me again." She hiccuped.

"They hurt you." He stated, Sakura flinched as the man reached a gloved hand to her exposed knee. He glared at the wound then glanced up to her. Somehow the shimmer that had surrounded him was gone.

The breath caught in her lungs and it was like she was seeing the man for the first time.

"Your eyes…." She squeaked, eyes widening against their intense gaze. He smiled that wicked smile and leaned his head down until warm lips met bloody skin. Sakura flushed so red her neck became warm. A garbled mess of words escaped her and she almost didn't notice the pain disappear.

"Little girl…" he murmured, those sharp, cat like eyes cornering her once more.

"Tell me your name." it sounded like a command.

"Mommy told me never to talk to strangers." She reminded him.

"Tell me." He repeated in that soft voice, his black eyes twisted into a hypnotic crimson. Something spun inside them making her mind go fuzzy and numb like her body.

"Haruno Sakura."

He smiled at he and rewarded her with a gentle touch, his hand found her cheek and rubbed a fat tear away. His arm now out of the cloak she could study the shiny, reflective arm guard fully and see into the cloak. He had armor like that of a knight in the fairy tales. It glimmered in the bright light the snow reflected.

"What a good girl you are Sakura."

"What is your name?" she asks.

"Call me Itachi."

"Itachi..." she tested the name in mild, fuzzy intrigue.

"Yes?"

"….I should go back to school? Ino doesn't know I ran off."

His wicked smile returned as his other hand moved towards the child.

"I'm sure she won't mind…why not play with me?"

Sakura didn't answer for a long time, maybe she was thinking, but everything in her mind was hazy and muddled.

"What do you want to play Itachi?"

"….Whatever you wish." He picked her up in his arms. The eight year old was vaguely aware of that shiver creeping down her spine as she thought somewhere in her mind that she should push away from this strange man and his shiny knight armor.

"Itachi…?" she murmured, eyes heavy as she lay in his arms.

He waited for her to continue.

"Mommy told me stories before…"

"Oh?" he mused "About what?"

"About…about fairies." She sighed into his cloak that just about swallowed her.

His mysteriously red swirling eyes seemed to flash in amusement as she went on.

"She told me how they liked to travel from their world to ours to play games."

"That sound like fun." He chuckled, she faintly heard his footsteps as he walked then deeper into the woods behind her school.

"But she told me…she told me that if a little kid ever caught the attention of one, they would take them to their world with them to play…forever." She murmured.

"Your mother tells good stories." He mused.

"….Are you a fairy Itachi?"

Sakura didn't get an answer, her eyes drooped slowly until they closed, her breathing deep and even in sleep.

Itachi smiled down at the precious little girl wrapped up in his arms and snaked his glamour around their bodies. His magic hid his other worldly armor and his swirling red eyes became black.

A circle of the whitest stones greeted him in a small clearing as pixies and their pupil-less eyes watched the girl sleeping in his arms. The Brownies jumped energetically around the stones. In the center of the ring of stones he brushed the soft pink hair out of the child face.

"Yes Sakura…I truly am a fairy like in your mother's stories." He murmured before disappearing back to where he came with a new child for the fairies of his Unseelie Court to pamper and coo over.