A/N: Hello! This is the first story I publish. I'm quite anxious, and I hope you treat me well. Please R&R!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape or form (though I wish I did).
-The Second Rise of Haruno Sakura ~ Back to Step Zero, January 52 A.F. (After Founding)
Death was an experience nothing could have prepared her for.
Oh, she had tried to imagine what death was like – maybe it was a great nothingness, maybe just the next plane, where she could meet her previously unreachable loved ones, maybe she had to suffer in hell for every life she had taken in her career as a ninja –, but since she couldn't consult with anyone who had experienced death and came back to tell the tale, she had accepted that she had to think of the imaginable worst consequence and live with it, like anything else she did as a Kunoichi. To expect the unexpected and see underneath the underneath was her job.
Yet, sitting stiff like a board in a DaycareCenter, she began to muse that maybe death was very different from anything anyone had ever thought of before. Or that Kami-sama liked to try her patience, as always. Both was possible.
Her mind was only deceptively calm – in reality, only a thin blanket of rationality cloaked her growing, hysterical panic due to being stuck in a child's body, feeling exposed, vulnerable and pathetic to the world –, and her restraint on her sanity was slowly but surely slipping. This was not what she had imagined she would see when she died on the battlefield in a last bout of power!
Suddenly, she was calm again, breathing in and out in an exercise in meditation with ease, looking as if she was sleeping to the matrons. Her conscious desire to be calm and think had finally helped her to reign in her chaotic emotions.
First things first...
Her name was Haruno Sakura. S-Class-Kunoichi of the former Konohagakure no Sato in Hi no Kuni. Leader of Team Kage. Commander of the Shinobi Alliance. She would probably have been elected as Rokudaime Hokage, had Konoha still existed. Best MedicalNinja and FuinjutsuMistress of her time. TaijutsuExpert. Carrier of the 'Fuinran' Kekkei Genkai. Mizu no Chira.
She was 35 years old, 5'7 inches tall, curvy with pure muscle. Her long hair was blood-red, her skin tan, her eyes a glowing emerald-green. Eyes of Death, as some had told her in the aftermath of a battle. SuperStrength. Mistress of ChakraControl. Godly reflexes. Yes, she wasn't S-Class for no reason.
And still... and still...! She was nevertheless a four years old, sniveling brat with flaming-pink, short bangs, dressed in a green summer-dress, with a too-large forehead, the tendency to raise her high-pitched voice to a painful decibel – waiting for her mother in DaycareCenter!
Her stern, hard, experienced eyes – eyes of a war-veteran who had experienced death many times, had dealt with death many times – of the color of emerald gems were the only similarity. The only clue that she wasn't all that she looked like! How... pitiful.
'Useless...' the word echoed in her mind like a long-forgotten annoyance, taunting her as she gritted her teeth in anger. She wasn't useless! She had proven that again and again!
But old insecurities were an itching annoyance to deal with when faced with a situation completely out of her comfort-zone. She seemed to be nothing here, all her achievements gone, she was a child again, her precious ninja gone, her world was no more. It took all of her considerable self-control to let her even more considerable chakra – which consisted of only her Ki and a miniscule amount of Chi at this point, due to her vast knowledge and experience – slip out of her feeble grasp and go wild in this room full of small children and a few adults, all being civilians.
She could not loose control! Her people depended on her. Any good ninja worth her salt had to do so!
It was due to those pillars of her sanity that she drew herself together, opening her eyes slowly as she felt herself able to move without snapping. It was much more difficult than she would have liked, but she managed to do so. It was the first step in a long row of steps she had to climb to get to the very top once again.
She was Haruno Sakura and always would be Haruno Sakura!
Then she opened her eyes – and blurted "Mom?!"-
-The Second Rise of Haruno Sakura ~ Prologue, January 52 A.F.