1 Coal - Chapter 1:
Summary: Hatake Kakashi is reborn as Katniss Everdeen's younger sister. When Katniss volunteered for Prim, Kakashi volunteered for Katniss. A Naruto and Hunger Games crossover story. AU.
Disclaimer: Naruto and Hunger Games are not mine.
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When Solanum Everdeen realized that she was Hatake Kakashi, she was three years old.
With sweat running down her blond brows, Solanum curled into herself as numerous memories in no particular order rushed through her mind.
Of a young silver-haired boy who followed the rules and squashed down sentiment and emotions; one who ran, ran, and ran away from the memories of the past.
Of a reclusive one-eyed man who was so undeniably broken and cracked that he called himself "scum" on a daily basis as he tried to repent for his mistakes.
Solanum broke down into silent tears and gagged in disgust when the vision ended with him – her – feeling undeniable grief as a person laid against the floor with a sword in his stomach, blood pooling around him in a macabre image.
'Father,' her mind whispered.
She couldn't quite control the tortured sobs that escaped out of her mouth.
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Solanum was a simple girl.
She loved her family, loved her pack, loved the people she called hers.
She believed that as long as the people she loved were safe, everything was okay.
Everything was fine.
Fine.
(Even if it wasn't.)
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Even without the maturity that came with remembering her past life, Solanum knew there was something distinctly wrong in the society she inhabits.
The gaunt faces and the sheer scent of poverty that permeated the air practically screamed that the people in this district were struggling to survive and, as part of a family that lived in the Seam, the place where coal-miners lived and worked, this poverty was more apparent. There were times wherein she wasn't exactly starving, no. Her father tried his best, after all. But there was this persistent, nudging hunger that would tell her that it wasn't enough. The food wasn't enough to satisfy - satiate.
She could ignore that, though.
(Solanum always made sure to get the smallest portion, even as her stomach rumbles and tightens uncomfortably.)
As long as her sisters could eat more, it was enough for her.
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Solanum didn't really mind District 12 much. Compared to before, where she had to fight and kill for her village while all her precious people broke down to pieces, this life was good. Sometimes, she could sometimes even honestly say that she loved it with all of its flaws and mistakes.
The sooty place guarded by mountains was calming and, disregarding some of its parts, beautiful.
The wild forests near their home though, made her heart ache almost unbearably. She found it nostalgic. There were times where she just wanted to run and remember what once was. To prove to herself that she wasn't – she wasn't going crazy and her dreams weren't just a figment of her fevered mind.
Maybe, just maybe, if she went there she'll know.
Unfortunately, there was an electric fence that barred the people from exploring the place so she couldn't even if she wanted to. She asked her mother once for the reason that it was fenced off, to which her mother replied that it was to keep them safe – to keep the wild animals out.
(She ignored the voice in her head whispering that the fence most likely kept the people in. In. Like animals.)
It wasn't like it stopped her father, who sometimes went there to find some food to eat.
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Her family kept her sane.
It was almost scary how Solanum depended on them so much, but she couldn't stop. There were times when the memories drowned who she is and she couldn't remember – couldn't distinguish the past from the present.
Sometimes she could feel her mind breaking – fracturing and all she could do was curl in on herself until a voice or a touch from her parents or siblings pulled her back.
(It terrified her.)
(What if she couldn't come back?)
It made her family her foothold - her rock. The ones who kept her from drifting away.
(She wouldn't lose her precious people again. Not like before.)
(She's willing to dirty her hands, if it meant her family could survive.)
They were her everything.
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Solanum loved her family with a love that bordered on obsession. For all that she was a person of her own, she was too broken- too haunted by the memories of a person that she once was. Loving, for her, meant all and everything that she could give. No holds barred.
Solanum loved her doting Mama. Her current mother provided her the care she didn't experience before and, for that, she was always grateful.
Solanum loved her hardworking Papa. Her father who couldn't – wouldn't replace Sakumo (how could he when he didn't even see her), but a person she appreciated all the same due to the blood, sweat and tears he sacrificed for them.
Solanum loved her sisters, adventurous Katniss and beautiful Prim, with their innocence and untainted souls. They wouldn't get her sins if she had anything to say about it.
(It didn't matter that her anguished screams freaked them out. They hugged her and soothed her, didn't they?)
(It didn't matter that sometimes her parents flinched away from her when she acted too mature. Too adult. Too unlike the daughter they once knew. They're still there, aren't they?)
(It didn't matter that her mother spoiled gentle Prim who matched her looks and demeanor, while her father favored bold Katniss and taught her the knowledge he knew in the forest. They sometimes forgot her but that's alright, wasn't it? She was basically a grown adult before, after all, so the two deserved all the attention they got, right?)
(It didn't matter that her family seemed to see a stranger and didn't understand why she cried so much at night yet showed so little of her emotions during the day. It didn't matter that her sisters didn't know how to interact with her and acted so distant that sometimes she wondered what would happen if she just left. Would they even miss her?)
(It didn't matter that it hurt. It didn't. No.)
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Solanum should have known there was a catch.
This was disgusting.
Inhumane.
The Hunger Games.
Solanum couldn't help but let out an insane laugh at that one.
She had been reborn into a world where children with little to no training died like lambs at a slaughter for fucking entertainment. The government dangled food as bait to entice people to enter more of their names in the lottery of death in order to survive just one more week or month in the miserable existence they called life.
They were nothing more than pawns. Slaves. The fucking government, Capitol, was playing with them. Cowing them with their prowess. Saying that they could do something as fucked up as this and there was nothing anyone could do but watch as children from every district died.
Was this punishment, perhaps? Solanum knew she killed enough innocents to deserve one, but others fucking didn't.
Solanum first witnessed the event when she was four-years-old, and watching it happen again and again didn't make it easier to stomach.
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Then, she was ten-years-old.
It was her birthday.
Solanum didn't invite any of her schoolmates mostly because of the lack of food, but partly because she had no one to invite.
She was not like Prim, after all, with her charm and charisma. Everybody liked her.
She was not even like Katniss who, despite her prickliness, had friends of her own.
She was just Solanum. Strange, emotionless Solanum.
(Solanum who as Kakashi, only had Gai during her early years because he was persistent and kind. She missed Gai. She wished she could have someone like him by her side too because at least he tried his best to understand.)
The meager food that they had was ready when some strange men came and told them that Papa had died in a coal-mining incident along with a few others.
Papa died.
They were asked to attend a funeral ceremony and continued spouting of information, but Solanum wasn't listening anymore.
Papa died.
She was stuck to her seat and didn't heed the stricken faces of her sisters or the utterly broken look on her mother's face - hauntingly mirroring her own.
He died.
Screaming excruciatingly, Solanum grieved and expressed the pain she felt the only way she knew how.
Everything was not alright anymore.
Not by a long shot.
