（ her hand stills, and the needle with it as she wrinkles her nose up. young? certainly. but the right of passage to adulthood was passing the chuunin exam, and she did that when she was fourteen. ）

I wasn't a child in the way you're suggesting. Young, yes — but our culture doesn't really work like that.

（ constant war tends to age people before their time. she doesn't know many shinobi who've survived into their forties, after all. ）

And it wasn't only luck, either. （ she resumes her work, teeth catching at one corner of her lip as she does. ） It was also hard work, being in the right place at the right time, and the sacrifice of thousands of members of the allied army.