"Papa, you have ta' tie my hair like this!"

"Like what? What kinda—okay, hold on, what was the first step? Make everything into a circle?"

Five year old Sakura giggled. "No, Papa, that's silly! You just gotta get all a' my hair and put it all together! Like a horsey's tail!"

Kisame fixed her hair to look like cat ears and grinned. "Like this?"

"That's a kitty!" Sakura laughed and pointed to her reflection in the mirror. "You need ta' do a horsey!"

A couple of bobby pins were set in his teeth as he pulled her rogue pink tresses together high at the back of her head. Finally, he took her favorite red ribbon and tied her hair up into the ponytail he spent the last year trying to get right and carefully pinned away any stray hairs that might fall in front of her face.

"Remember it's important to keep your hair up and away when you're out on the field, pup," Kisame explained, giving her shoulders a light squeeze. "Make sure it doesn't block your vision or get caught in your weapons. If you want to grow your hair out longer, then I guess I can teach you how to put your hair in a bun."

Sakura hopped off her stool and followed her father out of the bathroom. "A bun? Like a steamed bun?"

"Kinda like that," he said. He laughed when her nose wrinkled in distaste. "Trust me, when I say I'm going to put your hair in a bun it doesn't mean I'm gonna stick some bread on the top of your head. You know how many birds you're gonna attract?"

"I like birds!"

"You won't like 'em when they're chasing you around the village. Come on, pup, put on your shoes. You remember how?"

Sakura bobbed her head and hurried over to the door to plop on the ground and clumsily tug on her sandals. Kisame let a fond smile take over his face as he watched his daughter get herself ready for a day out. He really had nothing to worry about with her—she was such a good kid. Smart, always smiling, never complaining. 

She deserved so much more than this.

Once Sakura wiggled her toes and made sure her footwear was on correctly, she popped up onto her feet and took hold of her father's hand. 

"We'll see Mama now?" she questioned. Kisame made sure her cloak was on securely before opening the door and letting her step through first.

"Yeah, we'll go see her now."

"Can I pick the flowers?"

"'Course, pup. You can pick any ones you like."

::

Sakura chose a bouquet of lilies this time and carried it all the way to the cemetery without any help, and she was proud. She even carried it to her mother's grave: a slate gray stone tucked in a corner near the trees, Hoshigaki Saki carved in the stone above the words a kind nurse, a loving wife, and a mother who could have been. Rain pooled in the etchings and the cracks of the brick walkway beneath their feet as she set down the flowers and back up against her father's legs, holding her hand up to grasp his once again.

"How'd you meet Mama?"

Kisame smiled sadly. She asked that a lot and never got tired of his answer.

"After I left Kiri, I wandered around for a bit before coming to Ame and moving to the dingy apartments down in the southern districts," he said, as he'd told her thousands of times before. Sakura kept her eyes on the treeline, but hummed to assure him that she was listening faithfully. "Not long after I moved in, she knocked on my door and offered me a plate of cookies. Then I slammed the door in her face and she yelled at me through the wood."

His little girl giggled.

"I had to open the door eventually, 'cause she kept yelling for me to take the cookies until I actually did. They were horrible," he continued warmly. It was some few minutes into his story when he felt Sakura's grip tighten and he stopped to look down at her. "Pup? What's wrong?"

"Why's it all... wavy?"

His eyebrows knit. "Wavy? What is?"

"Up there!" she exclaimed. Sakura used her free hand to point up at the high tree tops "It's... wavy. But trees aren't wavy. There's no wind or nothing."

It happened so fast.

The next thing Kisame knew, he'd caught his daughter before she crumpled to the ground, a deep gash pulsing blood from her right shoulder and a stained kunai embedded in the ground just behind her. One tug brought Samehada in front to shield her from other projectiles, and another tug shot a handful of shuriken towards the hidden assailants.

He gathered Sakura in his arms and shunshinned a good distance away to a high vantage point covered by an overhang, and only then did he register her soft cries and tears.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry," he murmured. He hurriedly reached into his back pouch and pulled out a small first aid kit. "I didn't know—I—I didn't think there'd be—I'm so sorry."

Someone attacked his baby girl in the heart of Akatsuki's operations. They targeted her. They hurt her.

And he was so naive to think that she was safe whenever he was around.

He tried to push down his searing anger and gingerly turned her body to assess the damage. A four inch long wound ran diagonally from her shoulder to the back of her arm.

"Hurts," she whimpered. "P-Papa—hic—hurts..."

"I know, pup, I'm sorry—I'll try to fix it, okay? I'll try to make the hurt go away."

Kisame took a cloth from the kit and paused. He knew he could hold a baby and care for her as much as his heart allowed, but his hands were calloused and rough and had killed by the hundreds. He could hold a baby, but he'd never had to clean such a fragile person's wound before. What if he hurt her even more? 

She needed stitches. She was in so much pain. If he cleaned her wounds, he could press too hard and make it worse—

A nimble hand took the cloth from his hands, and he would've sighed in relief if he wasn't brimming with anger and worry.

"Your attackers are still loose in the village," Konan stated. She met the small sobs of 'Ko-san' by gently wiping away the dirt and blood from the weeping gash. "Pein-sama will have them apprehended, that is, if you don't get to them first."

Kisame tore his pained gaze away from his daughter and glanced down at the village from his high perch. Rage pulsed at the edges of his vision.

"Pa... Papa..."

"It'll be okay, pup," he said. He drew Samehada. "It'll be okay."

Then he jumped, Sakura's cries ringing in his ears and the intent of death hammering within the borders of his skull.

Amegakure witnessed wrath that day.

And it was wrath that made its streets run red.

::

"Kisame?"

"Killed every last one of them."

"And the girl?"

"Discharged from the hospital. She's running around like nothing happened."

Pein tilted his head and gazed out at the haze of rain over his village. It seemed that a group of genjutsu users had entered Ame under the impression of being missing-nin looking for refuge, but had turned a leaf when they discovered Hoshigaki Kisame—a source of a past grudge—had taken up residency in the village as well. The Akatsuki membership part was unknown to them, but he supposed that even if they had known, it wouldn't have stopped them from trying to enact their revenge.

Sakura had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, becoming a last-second victim because she was holding their target's hand. An accessible distraction, though one they hadn't cared to use to its fullest potential.

But genjutsu was never one of Kisame's strong suits and it would've taken him a short while to notice that they were hiding up in the trees, and that's exactly what caught his attention.

Sakura noticed something was wrong; little five year old Hoshigaki Sakura noticed a genjutsu tell without even knowing what it was.

Pein turned and strode back into his office.

'Homegrown advantage, indeed.'

::

And here we have a fan art by kn222381 !