"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

Plato

When the Hatake Sakumo told her he was going to Konohagakure's administration and take care of her adoption papers, she did not expect that he would take care of it all. Ayame was no idiot. She was perfectly aware of how hard it was to compile documents. Given that the child Sakumo adopted was a total stranger and her personal documents were scattered everywhere, he still managed to finish all this desk work in a single day.

In her opinion, she could also pull that off – without sleeping that is.

Drying the dishes with a cloth, Ayame realized she had forgotten to hang the washing outside. The girl wiped the bubbles off her hands on the apron she made two days ago, after failing to find one. She found it a little out-of-habit doing house chores. After all, she had obtained an unbelievable kind of luxury after she became rich. Maids would come with the snap of her fingers, they would bow in her presence and people could not help but fawn over her.

The four-year-old girl touched the cloth covering the half of her face out of habit.

Ayame dimly recalled that the last time she did her laundry was in her university years. It was hard since she needed to balance her studies, house chores, and reading. Studies and reading were different, given that she was not fond of reading textbooks for entertainment. But it was different when some 'educational' knowledge piqued her interest.

"Ayame-chan?"

A head appeared at the door. She glanced at the new presence, full of interest. The White Fang's spiky silver hair defied gravity while his dark eyes darted from the sink to her indifferent masked face. An expression flashed across his features then it was gone in an instant.

The silver-haired Jōnin scratched his head. "Do you want to join us, Ayame-chan? Kakashi and I will be sparring at the back." The tiredness in his eyes was visible and the girl could see that the man was too pale to be healthy.

The school year at the Academy would be starting in three months. Ayame had time to spare so she agreed with Sakumo's invitation.

The orphanage sent off its children a little too early. The girl guessed that maybe they wanted to get rid of kids faster to lessen the burden. From what she heard, the budget in the shelter was getting tighter and tighter by the day. Seeing as the village's budget was getting smaller, they would surely lessen the funds for institutions that could not contribute to the war so that they could maintain the finances in the military.

Sakumo left after seeing the girl nod slowly. Ayame detached her gaze on the door and continued with her chores. She needed to finish the laundry before the silver-haired Jōnin could stop her. He may not mind her doing the dishes but Ayame was sure the man would disagree with her washing their clothes.

To be sure, she didn't dare touch Hatake Sakumo's Jōnin uniform and only washed his daily garments and Kakashi's. Frankly, she was having a hard time doing the laundry because she was used to washing machines. With her small hands, she barely managed to clean her own outfits but thankfully, the two boys did not change clothes that much.

That made her wonder.

Ayame had been living with them for almost a week but she never saw the Hatakes wash their clothes. From what she saw in the laundry basket, the clothing would only last for two days at the least and three days at most. She was deeply troubled; the case of the missing outer garments had been bugging her since morning.

The girl shrugged. She would think it over after she watched the spar between the father and child.

It simply took her a day's time to memorize the Hatake's traditional Japanese home so when Sakumo vaguely told her that they would be sparring 'at the back' she knew where to go without anyone guiding her. It was her first time being invited to watch the pair train. She did not try to include herself in their training; Ayame did not want to intrude on their moment knowing the jōnin was barely home.

The training ground that the jōnin indistinctly described was an open space on the far side of the house. Beside it was a locked shed which Ayame deduced to have weapons and other equipment. She had the urge to open it once but then realized the consequences would be dire regardless if she could open it or not.

It was only her wishful thinking. Shinobis were a paranoid bunch after all. For all she knew there could be a booby trap inside and simply by touching, it would be triggered to kill her.

She heard loud shouting and woods clashing before she saw the scene. Two figures were present on the training ground. One was large while the other was smaller by a couple of heads. Obviously the larger one was the White Fang and the latter was Kakashi, whose sorry figure was lying on the dirt.

'His father did not hold back at all'. Ayame was a little intrigued by how the man trained his own son and tossed the idea in the bin inside her mind which she named 'because it's the ninja way'.

A kunai was stuck on the ground. Sakumo tried to pluck it off but he did not even flinch when another set of sharp weapons targeted him. Ayame saw Kakashi's face (or his eyes for that matter since the other half of his face was covered) change into a face pure of determination. The girl had to admire him, considering fighting a jōnin was hard even for a chūnin. The boy was not even a genin and yet he was fighting his father who was rumoured to be on par with the Densetsu no Sannin.

It took the pair a while to notice her presence. Ayame was sure Sakumo had noticed her presence earlier. Being the jōnin he is, the man probably decided that it was best if he acknowledged her existence after the match. Kakashi grunted as a greeting and the girl nodded in reply. The two children had yet to make a conversation after the purple haired girl's arrival, and she was not sure if it was her fault.

There were several reasons as to why she tried to avoid confrontation. First, she was tip-toeing around the boy because he was the biological son, and Ayame was pretty sure siblings without blood relations do not get close right off the bat. Faintly remembering that some people describe Kakashi as an arrogant prick in his childhood, it rang alarm bells in her mind. Thus, the probability of Kakashi loathing her was also high – after all, he was an only child and with her presence, his arrogant prick-ness would surely activate.

The second reason was simple. She would need to polish her Japanese because it might cause misunderstandings. Her three-word sentences would certainly create chaos and the silver-haired jōnin would surely regret adopting her. Until then, she would try to evade Kakashi as much as possible.

Ayame tried to avoid Kakashi's gaze and directed her eyes on Sakumo. "Maybe you should join us, Ayame-chan. It would probably help you adjust with the taijutsu lessons inside the Academy," the jōnin suggested while he sat on the ground.

The girl deliberated if she should agree or decline. Ayame nodded, seeing there would no disadvantages for her. It might also help her considering that she did not know how to fight. She had only practiced katas and forms from her mandatory defence class in high school. The trainers also held back too much so Ayame had never really considered herself as a competent fighter.

The training went smoothly, which Ayame did not expect. Sakumo was a talented teacher and gave her clear instructions on what she should or should not do. One of those points was breathing, a thing that he said to place focus on. Ayame had barely glossed over the topic in her defence class and had deliberately erased it from her memory. Apparently, from what the White Fang pointed out, it was the foundation of everything so forgetting it was not an option.

Luckily, she started running a year ago and her breathing and body long since synced.

The whole time, Hatake Kakashi was on the sidelines, practicing his kunai throwing skills. Ayame had no idea how he hit the target every time with the same exact accuracy and precision. Sakumo, seeing how she was distracted by his son, offered for her to try. The girl had tried to drop the 'beginner' card but instead of letting her go, he handed her a kunai and thrown her in front of his son.

Kakashi eyed her when she appeared before him. Ayame immediately rushed in front of the targets. The girl couldn't care less about his impression of her since she was 38 years older, but she was the foster sister and forcing him to adjust because of her attitude was not right.

"Force also contributes when it comes to knife throwing, but the most vital part in throwing a kunai is not technique but the precision of the hands," Sakumo interrupted her thoughts. "Observe the angle of your hands and how it will affect the kunai when you release it. Practice this and in time it will be a reflex and you will not need to focus that much."

The purple haired girl forced the answer from her throat, "I understand."

It was not the first time that Ayame spoke, but the anxiety after speaking still made her heart beat faster than normal. She found it ironic, in her last life her job required her to speak non-stop and currently it was hard for her to speak an array of words. Perhaps she took it for granted and now she was being punished so that she could barely hold a conversation.

Two months had passed since Hatake Sakumo dragged her into their training. The silver-haired jōnin had crossed her taijutsu as passable but she knew she was far from achieving Kakashi's prowess. On the other hand, it only took the man a few days to realize she busied herself with household chores if she was not on the training grounds. The jōnin was surprised and had not realized that a child her age could complete chores inside the house.

The White Fang was about to deal with the laundry two weeks after the girl's arrival and was surprised to find out that there was no clothes to wash. His mind immediately darted to the figure of the little girl he recently adopted. Sakumo had known Ayame was the one washing the dishes but he did not realize the girl would go as far as doing another's laundry.

Kakashi had not reacted at all after his father confronted the girl, on which she shrugged and continued to throw handful of kunais with more accuracy. Ayame guessed that he could not understand the implications of her washing his inner and outer garments. Laundry was not on a four-year-old child's mind.

But, oh, Ayame would certainly pay to see his reaction after she washed his clothes in his pubescent years.

The White Fang decided to proceed with chakra control. Chakra needed time and an enormous amount of training to build up so shinobis decided that the key would be to sufficiently control and conserve it, since not many ninja have large chakra reserves. This practice was called chakra control and was the means to easily use jutsus.

Ayame was a little disgruntled as to how Kakashi had learned chakra control in the span of a week, from what the silver-haired jōnin told her. Unknown to them, Ayame had exactly spent two months solely for chakra control. Listing a string of curses in her mind, Ayame swore to never place herself in the same station with a genius.

Kakashi, on the other hand, was unaware that the other child was cursing him in her mind and thus, decided to speak to her for the first time. "Why don't you just kill yourself?"

The off-handed comment made Ayame raise an eyebrow. She had bet with herself on what Kakashi's first words to her would be but she never expected this. The girl decided to stay silent even though her current Japanese was now somewhat acceptable. The four-year-old wished everyone could speak in English so that things would be easier.

"I can't stand it." Kakashi gave another unsolicited comment. "Tou-san taught you how to handle chakra and now, somehow, you managed to mishandle it. I'm even surprised you aren't dead yet."

It was the truth. Kakashi had been observing her for a while now (correction: for two weeks straight) and she still hadn't gotten it right. If not for his father accepting a mission that would surely take weeks before he could finish, he would not help Ayame. The boy also did not want his father blaming him when he came home and saw the girl's cold body.

Ayame stared at him blankly. She was not offended by Kakashi's harsh words but she heard something unusual.

"I'm doing it wrong?" The girl did not even realize she fluently spoke without fear.

"Yes, everything," Kakashi spoke matter-of-factly, "You're skipping various tenketsu points when moving your chakra. Hasn't Tou-san told you to do it slowly? Baka."

'I was doing it incorrectly from the start?' Ayame became aware of her mistake and what Kakashi implied. In controlling chakra, one should do it with a constant speed so that the other tenketsus would not feel shock.

Shock was putting in nicely, but the consequences would be bloody and at worst she could possibly die. Nevertheless, if she could retain her life, she would live the rest of it being a gory mess with parts of her body missing. If the speed was not constant, chakra would block tenketsu point A and would refuse to transfer to tenketsu point B. As a result, the tenketsu point A would explode from the large amount of chakra and it would be hard to deal with.

The girl visibly paled and Kakashi could not hide the mirth in his eyes. He found it funny that the girl as stoic as an Uchiha would pale from fright. Nonetheless, it did not stop the boy from correcting Ayame's other mistake.

"You got another part wrong too," the boy stated behind his cloth mask, he eyed the girl with interest.

Ayame could not help but ask, "What is it?"

Kakashi loosened the green scarf on his neck using his right hand, while the other was pointing at Ayame's knee. "Bend your knee more when practicing stances. It's much easier that way."

"Aren't you doing the same thing?" the girl countered easily. "We—"

Ayame subconsciously stopped herself from speaking when she realized how easily the words flowed from her mouth. Perhaps it was Kakashi triggering it with how condescendingly he gazed at her and spoke with his over-confident words, or maybe her mind unconsciously treated the boy as 'not human'. That was why she could talk freely.

"We what?" Kakashi replied, his stare getting sharper.

Ayame calmly stated her opinion, "We are both the same height. Why do I need to bend my knees lower?"

Kakashi could not help but sigh. He was not arrogant, contrary to the purple haired girl's belief. Somehow, between his younger years, rumours had spread that Sakumo's son was arrogant beyond belief. Sakumo tried to end it but the mouths of the masses were hard to stop.

It started when Kakashi was playing with the other kids and he, being confident in his abilities, tried to correct another child's error. His words were harsh and the mother of the child overheard. The tale had spread until no one could control it. There was another occasion where he refused to be pinched on the cheeks by someone he did not know. Apparently a little boy could be called insensitive for that. Since then, he wore a mask to prevent misunderstandings altogether.

Kakashi could only wave the story off and focus on training.

"Because the stance was made for men," Kakashi replied as he got back to practicing his kenjutsu.

From the time shinobis started to appear, the masculine majority were the ones who created the forms, stances and katas known to the world. It was only after the kunoichis gathered that the ninja population realized that they needed to adjust these practices to fit a woman's stature.

Ayame reviewed the information she had on Kakashi and decided to throw everything out of the window. The boy was confident, but that was far from being arrogant. The purple-haired girl knew an arrogant person when she saw one, like how she could recognize a liar just by a glance. If she could not even do a meagre thing then all those years of being a businesswoman would be for naught.

The rest of the day was spent on Kakashi giving her pointers and Ayame sharing her own. From what she could see, Kakashi was not omnipotent and all-knowing just because he was a genius. The chibi version of Hatake Sakumo was far from perfect. Shinobi or not, the boy was still a boy.

The White Fang returned after another week, battered. Ayame was surprised but did not want to test her luck and try to heal him. Although she had learned medical ninjutsu from reading the Kurosawa Family's archives, she had only tested the technique herself. Curing other patients other than herself was out of the question. The shinobis that returned from missions were required to visit the hospital after reporting to the Hokage.

Sakumo was also surprised but for another reason. He knew he was staring but it was odd seeing the two coordinated perfectly. Kakashi had taken all his belongings and placed it in the storage room where he would sort it out later. Then Ayame arrived with tea and snacks and told him to rest after he consumed everything.

His son, again, emerged immediately after Ayame left and gave him pain relievers. He had received the same pills at the hospital earlier but he took the medicine from his son nonetheless. After that, Ayame arrived again and gingerly refilled his cup with tea.

The wind blew and the room was awfully quiet. Neither of the three decided to talk. Hatake Sakumo was lost. If he didn't know better, he would think that these two had known each other for a year at least, but it has not even been three months.

Finally, Sakumo asked out of curiosity, "What happened before I came back?" His hitaite gleamed under the light while the two remained unmoved under his gaze.

Kakashi glanced at the girl beside him. "We decided to have a truce."

"A truce?" The silver-haired shinobi's amusement in his voice could not be hidden. After all, he did not expect the answer to be this out of place.

"Somehow, while you were gone," Ayame nonchalantly replied, "We ended up fighting on who was the best at what."

"You mean to tell me—" Sakumo was not deterred after hearing the girl speak, "—a rivalry happened while I was gone?"

"More like, she tried to kill me and I tried to kill her."

The edge of Ayame's lip twitched after she heard the silver-haired chibi's reply. The house was always a mess in the afternoon. Vases would be broken, shoji doors would be ripped and the two struggled to pull the kunais attached to the wall. It was because of their insistent fighting that they had to think of a way to repair the multiple holes in the wall.

"I was gone and—"

"The house was destroyed in some areas, but we repaired most of it," Kakashi intervened.

Ayame coughed twice and corrected, "Destroyed in a couple of areas."

Kakashi rolled his eyes. "Yes, a couple of areas."

The White Fang buried his head between his hands when the two stopped speaking. After his wife's death, Sakumo had promised her that he would protect the house no matter what the cost and would never destroy it. Now their child had destroyed it because of a rivalry that popped out – out of nowhere.

Ayame acted as if the jōnin's problem had nothing to do with her and walked out of the scene, while Kakashi was left to watch his father. Sakumo sighed helplessly. Kakashi did not know what he had done wrong, but in his eyes, both he and Ayame were at fault.

They were fighting quite enthusiastically the other day and she had dashed inside the house to escape his attacks. Of course, he could not let it be and followed, making the house the main battlefield.

But Kakashi would never tell this secret to his father.

The White Fang would never tell this to anyone, but having the purple-haired girl in their home made him less stressed and decreased his anxiety. He followed the girl's figure as she placed the piles of neatly folded clothes beside him. Kakashi blankly stared at his own folded pile, and shrugged.

The girl was surprisingly good at household chores and dealing with Kakashi – her brother – and being a responsible child. The jōnin could now peacefully leave the house. He would not have to worry about his son causing trouble. Finally, he could stop sending Kakashi to the neighbours while wondering if they were treating him right.

Ayame gave him his newly-washed flak jacket and he accepted it with a grunt.

Only a week remained before they enter the Academy. Children were excited outside because of the popular game 'ninja', where children would need to tap their enemies in a game of tag. The group which had the largest remaining number of members would be the winners. Ayame thought the game should be a publicity stunt—like how celebrities tried to increase their fan base before an event—to gain more talented ninjas since the war was approaching.

Kakashi sat upright beside his father. Somehow, Ayame could not see the same Hatake Kakashi slumped and reading porn. But she shrugged and continued to fold her clothes.

Sakumo was treating Ayame like his own, an action which she greatly appreciated. Kakashi, on the other hand, had no qualms after having an adopted sister. The jōnin even forced the two of them to call each other onii-san/onee-san and imouto/otouto but unexpectedly, the two found it funny.

"Nii-san, come over here and get your clothes," Ayame said, without glancing back.

Apparently, Kakashi was older than the girl by ten days – a fact that did not amuse Ayame the slightest bit. In the end, she could do nothing to change it. She could only blame herself for being born ten days after him.

Sakumo knew his son was smirking triumphantly.

"What's the matter imouto? Why do you sound so sad? If anyone tried to bully you, your onii-chan would get them."

Ayame had never set foot outside the house since she arrived. The matter of bullying was completely false and Kakashi knew it. She chose to say inside the house so she did not have to deal with snotty-nosed brats. On the contrary, even the house was not safe from people. 'Kakashi and those insane fools,' Ayame thought gravely.

It took another two months and three missions for Sakumo before she understood what was happening. Every week, people would be bang on the door and scream their lungs out. It pissed her off. It was early in the morning and they would disturb her sleep, a luxury she could only experience in her second life.

She was surprised to find out that they were proposing marriage, to a four-year-old boy. To say it was insane was a given. Ayame racked her mind about what to do before closing the door in their faces.

Inwardly she rolled her eyes. She decided that if she saw another handsome boy, Ayame would surely run the other way.