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chapter one.

Both of them were incredibly extroverted, making friends at the drop of a hat and always happy to talk to people.

I'm the odd one out in the family, the youngest with pink hair and red eyes the colour of deep wine. My eyes were always a controversy among our family, my pink hair could be explained through Obaasan but my eyes couldn't be explained. Haruno's mostly had green eyes, a few blue ones here and there but never red. My father's family didn't have my eye colour either, I knew that for certain considering the fact that my father had been a Yamanaka.

It was odd, to say the least, but currently, it was the least of my problems. I pretended to listen to my older sister, Niko, as she rambles about what she is learning in civilian school, "...Culinary arts Aoi! You get to learn all the best dishes to cook for your future husband!" 

Oh, Edo-period sexism, how you weren't at all missed. Thankfully joining the shinobi academy was an option that was open to me and even if my parents protested I would sign up of my own volition. Death before dishonour and all that.

"Aoi look!" Niko coos into my ears, snapping me from my thoughts and into focus to look at where she's pointing; "That over there is Tsunade Senju, the Hokage's granddaughter! And the Hokage himself! You should totally go over there and try to be friends with her!"

I watched the toddler Senju princess as she played in the sand, glaring at the other kids who were seemingly trying to impress the girl with a variety of different tricks, all of them not meeting her standards. This point rubbed in when she began throwing sand and rocks at the other children, I frowned, turned to look Niko in the eyes, and spoke; "No thanks, I don't play with rude people."

Niko sputters at my words, before trying to reassure me that Tsunade probably won't throw anything at me while Kure smiled behind her hand at my overly blunt statement. I simply roll my eyes and observe the other children, over half are civilians while the others are from ninja clans but all of them are crowding around the Senju brothers.

Well, all apart from one.

Niko grabs for my hand, wanting to join the group surrounding the Hokage but I expertly dodge and move to where the child is sitting by himself. Kure laughs and herds Niko towards the group crowding the Senju's, assuring the younger girl that I would be fine. Kure has always trusted me when it comes to going off on my own, knowing that I wouldn't wander too far away or do anything dangerous.

I smiled to myself, waving quickly to both Niko and Kure before I bee-lined for the boy who was sitting alone. He was tossing a ball between himself and a tree.

That, I thought morosely, is a mood.

"Hey, you okay?"

He startled, forgetting his ball and wincing when it hit him in the face. I blinked in surprise, bringing a hand to my mouth to hide a grin as his face turned bright red, "I'm fine, uhm, just, no one wanted to play with me so..." He trailed off with a slight shrug, lifting the rubber ball in his hand as if to prove his story.

"I'd like to play with you, if you want," I said, watching the pink petals fall from the tree above us, "It'll stop hurting the tree if we played together."

"Hurting the tree?"

I hummed, sitting down and smiling secretly, "I think trees are just alive as we are, that's why the Hokage's mokuton is so powerful."

"Because the trees can fell?

"Because they can feel the Hokage's feelings."

"Okay," He said, smiling at me for the first time since I'd come over, "I won't hurt the tree anymore." He paused for a moment, moving the ball around in his hands before looking at me seriously, "But are you sure you want to hang out with me? It's just not a lot of people like me so hanging around me will probably lower your chances of making more friends."

"Why? Is it because you sorta look like a snake? Cause if that the case then you don't have to worry because I love snakes, and as for your clan," I grinned lazily and leant back, throwing a few cherry blossom petals into the air, "I'm from a civilian clan so I don't really care, in fact, let's forget about clans all together alright?" I looked at him as the petals fell lazily, frowning when I saw him looking uneasily at his rubber ball. With an internal sigh, I forced myself to my feet, turning I held out my hand to him, "I'm Aoi, by the way, now, let's go steal the sandbox."

The boy's eyes, a small smile overtaking his face and he took my hand; "My name is—"

- - -

AN: dun dun dun!!

This chapter has now been edited!! 

Not Aoi literally destroying trees all chapter long and then telling Orochimaru not to hurt the trees afterwards, hypocrite energy. 

Not sure what editing does to comments; maybe it'll just break Wattpad altogether? Wouldn't surprise me tbh.