The next day, Sakura dashes to Ino's house and bounces up and down on the doorstep, waiting for someone to come to the door.
Ino greets her with a big smile. "Come on in, Sakura-chan! Kaa-san's got a surprise for you!" She sings out, pulling Sakura into the house.
"Ino – Ino-chan!" Sakura says, a little frightened. She almost forgets the suffix, because in her dreams she always called her Ino, or, mysteriously, Ino-pig. Sakura wasn't very nice in her dreams. This is one of the reasons she hadn't told her parents about them yet.
They both burst into the kitchen to find the Yamanakas deep in conversation. Sakura hides behind the doorframe, just barely peeking into the room.
"Sakura-chan's here!" Ino announces unnecessarily.
Her mother gives a wry smile, "We can see that, Ino. Can you give us a minute? We're talking."
Ino's father looks at Sakura curiously. Sakura feels her face redden. She tugs her hand free of Ino's grip and backs up, away from the kitchen.
"Yeah, but – Sakura-chan's surprise!" Ino whines.
"Later, Ino." Her father's voice is firm.
Ino gives a loud hmph and storms off down the corridor. Sakura peeks back into the kitchen, barely swallowing back a squeak when she sees the two adults stare at her.
"S-sorry. Thank you for having me. B-bye…" She manages to say, then rushes after Ino.
Ino's waiting outside, a big scowl marring her pretty face. "You know, once we graduate from the Academy, we'll be considered adults." She says as Sakura reaches her. She looks so miffed that Sakura has to fight to stop herself from smiling.
"The Academy?" Sakura replies, confused. The dreams seem to indicate she will follow in her parents' footsteps and become a shinobi, but she's never mentioned it to Ino before.
"Of course!" Ino sniffs, linking her arm with Sakura's and starting to walk towards the park, "If I have to go, so do you. Don't worry, we'll be amazing. I'll teach you everything you need to know about poisons and ninjutsu, and then we'll both be kunoichi, dazzling our enemies with our beauty!"
"But I'm not beautiful, Ino-chan." Sakura says, surprised. Even with Ino's advice to show off her forehead rather than try to hide it, it doesn't change the fact that it's ugly.
Ino stops and wheels around, her face darkening like thunder. Sakura shrinks back. "Who said you're not beautiful?" She demands, static electricity sending sparks through her aura.
"N-no one, Ino-chan. Just me."
"Well, don't! Nobody insults my best friend, not even you!" Ino lets out another hmph and starts charging off to the park again, not waiting to see if Sakura was following.
Sakura hurries to get back to Ino's side, struggling to match her pace.
(I'm always so slow, she thinks, they keep leaving me behind. No, it's more like I can never reach their level in the first place, so why bother trying?)
Why bother trying? Because the end result is always worth it, Sakura thinks to herself, because getting to the point where she can stand at her friend's side is worth the struggle it took to get there.
"You are beautiful, so there." Ino says, her cheeks a little pink in annoyance.
"Thank you, Ino-chan."
"Hmph. And what about me?"
"You're beautiful too, Ino-chan."
"Of course I am!" Ino tosses her head, her pale blonde hair shimmering in the sun, "I'm going to be a legendary beauty, like the female Sannin! And when we graduate from the Academy, I can move into my own house without my parents nagging me all the time. And you can come too if you want." That last part is a rushed mumble that Sakura has to strain to hear.
"Thank you, Ino-chan." Sakura says, but all she can think is: to stay by Ino's side, she will have to start and finish the Academy at the same time. She can't ever fall behind or rush ahead. She and Ino will have to be tied together.
She doesn't really mind the idea.
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By the time they get to the park, Naruto's already there, swinging alone. Sakura wonders if he ever left. Did he even have somewhere to go home to? She decides to ask him as soon as possible.
"SAKURA-CHAN!" Naruto bellows, having spotted them both. He waves madly, standing up on the swing with nothing but dumb luck keeping him from falling off.
Sakura flinches despite herself.
Ino notices, because she links arms again and slowly pulls her towards the grinning boy at the swingset. Sakura can see parents and children glaring at Naruto, but even more are simply ignoring him. It's like he's a ghost, swinging on his own for the rest of his afterlife. Sakura shakes the sudden foreboding the thought brings – Naruto's going to be Hokage one day. Everyone will see him then. He will be fine. She has seen flashes of his future self, always grinning and radiating confidence. More than anything, she felt trust when she dreamed of him.
"And Ino, too, huh?" Naruto says as they approach, his tone pondering.
Ino bristles, "Eh? If she's Sakura-chan, I should be Ino-chan!"
Naruto studies her, frowning. "Nah! Doesn't suit you."
Ino makes a noise like a teakettle. "Then I'll call you Naru-baka!"
"Ehhhhh?"
It takes some time for Ino and Naruto to calm down.
"What are we gonna play?" Naruto asked, buzzing with excitement, "Sometimes I play hide and seek with the other kids, but they don't even know I'm playing 'cause I'm the sneakiest! And then I pop out like HA and they get so mad. They say, 'this game's not meant for you, idiot!' but they can't stop me!"
Though his grin never wavers, Sakura can feel his bright light dimming as he talks. It hardens her resolve. Naruto swore they'd be best friends. She'll make sure of it.
"Hide and seek's dumb," Sakura says, ignoring Ino's surprised look, "Let's play Monsters."
Naruto's grin widens and a spark lights up his chakra, "Ooh, ooh, really? What's that?"
"Well…" Sakura stalls, having not thought past the name, "It's when you pretend to be a monster, so you have to growl and stomp around and eat people."
Naruto actually jumps up and down on the spot, clapping his hands, "I can do that! I'll be the best monster you ever saw!"
"So, we can all be monsters?" Ino asks, trying to hide her interest.
"Uh-huh. And Naruto's in charge, since he's gonna be Hokage."
Naruto gives a triumphant yell at that.
Ino rolls her eyes. "It's not like monsters need someone to tell them what to do."
"Yeah, they do, so they know who to eat! And I say we eat all the jerks in the village!"
Sakura smiles, feeling a surge of fondness. She's not sure if it's a dream feeling or not, but it feels real either way. She really likes Naruto. He's as loud as Ino.
She gives Ino a sideways look and whispers, "Okay, now we gotta do it 'cause he's our Kage."
Ino sighs but nods, even throwing in a little curtsy to Naruto, who giggles in surprised delight.
"Okay! First, you gotta growl." Naruto orders, then demonstrates. He waves his hands in the air, fingers curled like claws, and makes a snarling face at them.
Sakura immediately regrets her idea, shrinking at the thought of looking silly or being laughed at. There's lots of other people in the park, and Naruto draws a lot of stares.
But then Ino laughs and gives a high-pitched growl, sounding like a particularly annoyed cat. Some people look over at her, but Ino doesn't give any sign of noticing.
Naruto and Ino both turn to look at Sakura. Ino smiles encouragingly. Sakura fidgets.
"Um… D-do I have to?"
"Of course!" Naruto says, "You're a monster, Sakura-chan! That means you're super scary! Remember when you punched that old guy? You were awesome! You can do it!"
"O-okay." Sakura takes a deep breath. She knows she can be scary. She can feel it, right down to her bones. She remembers the looks people would give her, right before she – before she –
"You can do it!" Ino says, sounding completely confident.
Sakura can feel the ghost of chakra covering her knuckles, priming an explosive punch. She feels chakra forming a knife's edge from her fingertips. She knows what it looks like when someone dies. How it feels when they die because of you.
She's never felt more monstrous. And she still can't do it.
Her face is turning red, she knows, so she tucks her chin down so her hair will shield her burning cheeks.
"Hey, it's okay, Sakura-chan." Naruto says, ducking down to meet her eye. He looks concerned. Sakura feels something ugly shift in her gut. He wouldn't look at her like that if he knew she could feel blood coating her hands. "It's okay, you don't have to be a monster if you don't want to. Nobody would ever think you were one, anyway. You can be normal."
You can be normal.
It's true. As long as no one ever finds out about Sakura's dreams, there's nothing strange about her besides her hair colour. She only ever gets bullied for her forehead and her blushing cheeks clashing with her hair. She's not like Naruto, who's followed by whispers and stares and is so hated that kids won't even let him play hide and seek. Naruto can't just give up being a monster. No one would let him.
Sakura grits her teeth. She raises her hands, the fingers like claws. She gulps, then lets out a pitiful little growl, like a puppy with a sore tummy.
"Wow!" Naruto explodes, "You did it! Well done, Sakura-chan!"
Sakura's face is on fire and she feels like everyone in the park is staring at her, including the weird guy with the mask from the day before.
And she doesn't care because she did it.
Sakura beams at Ino and Naruto. She can be a monster. Not the monster she is in her dreams – but she can be fierce and wild and not care what anyone thinks, just like her friends.
"I did it." She says quietly.
"Now, we gotta run around with our arms out like this," Naruto flaps his arms like wings and starts running in a circle, "And we gotta eat the bad guys before they destroy Konoha."
(The village has fallen. Stone buildings pounded into nothing. All colour is erased. Everything she's ever known is gone.)
Sakura freezes, but Ino puts a hand on her shoulder and smiles like she knows for sure there will be a tomorrow. Sakura wonders what that feels like. There were no trees, no blue sky, just a colossal crater where home used to be.
"C'mon," Ino murmurs, "We've got to eat the bad guys!"
When does it happen? When will Konoha be wiped out?
And what can she do to stop it?
She's going to have become strong. They all will.
Sakura lifts her arms shakily and manages to follow Ino's lead, running around and yelling like they're in the midst of battle – and now she knows what one looks like.
"We're going to be the best monsters!" Naruto yells.
"No," Sakura says, a shard of ice in her heart, "We're going to be the worst. We'll find all the bad guys and eat them all up."
Naruto howls.
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Ino makes them leave the park after Naruto gets a little too rowdy, so they head to one of the nearby fields, roaring all the way.
Sakura's not quite calm yet. The anger and horror of seeing her village being levelled has crystallised into something cold that sits in her chest. She pushes it out and roars just as loudly as Naruto, earning herself a delighted grin.
They're all gone.
Sakura's roar builds to a scream.
"Ugh, why are girls so loud." A lethargic voice says.
Sakura pauses, embarrassment flooding her, but the voice registers and –
(A voice speaking in low tones, wretched words that stab thorns through her heart, "You get what I'm saying…" The words float around her mind. She's always relied on her head to get her through tough times. This time, it is her heart that's screaming the answer. "That's why I've come… to ask your permission, Sakura." He says, and she wants to die.)
Shikamaru.
He's lying on his back, flattening the grass. There's a large boy next to him who's desperately trying not to make eye contact with any of them.
"They're not girls, they're monsters!" Naruto declares.
"Ugh, it's you two." Ino says with a scowl.
Shikamaru drawls, "And you. Tch, annoying. We were trying to get away from screeching girls, yet here you are."
Sakura ignores Ino's screeched reply in favour of sitting next to the big boy, whose face didn't give her a dream. She wishes she knew how they worked. If she doesn't dream upon meeting someone new, does that mean she wasn't supposed to meet them?
The boy flushes at her proximity, squirming to increase the distance between them. Sakura doesn't know him, now or then, but she knows what someone who's been bullied all their life looks like.
"Hi," She says warmly, "I'm Haruno Sakura. What's your name?"
The boy's face immediately turns bright red. He stammers out, "A-Akimichi Chouji." He still won't look at her.
"They're loud." Sakura says, nodding at Ino and Naruto, who are both bickering with Shikamaru, who's barely responding, arms folded behind his head, eyes closed. He might actually have fallen asleep.
Chouji laughs a little, eyes bright when he looks at Shikamaru. Maybe he's Chouji's version of Ino, Sakura thinks.
"Is he your friend?" She asks.
"The best," Chouji replies instantly, "He's my best friend. He doesn't care that I'm… He likes me anyway."
"I can see why," Sakura smiles, "You seem nice. I don't think there's anything wrong with you, but you join our team anyway, if you want."
"Your team? Why do I have to have something wrong with me to join?"
"We're the Monsters." Sakura reveals, making her voice as mysterious as possible. Chouji's eyes widen. "We make all the bad stuff everyone says about us true. S-some," She swallows hard, "some people say I'm ugly. Or a freak. But with Naruto and Ino, it doesn't matter. It just makes me more of a monster, and we like monsters."
"That's dumb," Shikamaru says, his eyes still closed, apparently having been listening all along, "We're not joining a thing like that."
"We wouldn't let you anyway! You have to be a monster to join." Ino says, matter-of-fact.
"But – but, monsters are mean! I don't want to be mean." Chouji protests.
"Monsters don't have to be mean." Sakura corrects.
"Then what's the difference between monsters and men?" Shikamaru asks, his sharp eyes flicking between them.
"Nobody likes monsters." Sakura says.
Shikamaru and Chouji both gave Ino dubious looks.
"Ino's an exception, she can't help being popular, it's not her fault." Sakura says.
Ino tosses her hair smugly, "And! You have to accept one thing!" She adds. Shikamaru and Chouji exchange looks.
"Blood ritual?" Shikamaru yawns.
"Ew, no! It's this – " Ino begins.
"Naruto – " Sakura continues.
" – is Hokage." The two girls finish.
Naruto beams at them all. Shikamaru's dubious look intensifies. His eyebrows look in danger of levitating off his forehead.
"No, he isn't." Chouji says, baffled.
"Is too." Sakura glares.
"He's our Hokage. The Hokage of Monsters. And he's the first one, so he's the Shodaime." Ino says bossily.
"The Hokage is the leader of Konoha," Shikamaru points out, "Unless Naruto murdered the old man and took his hat, he's not the Hokage."
"Well, then…" Sakura looks around at them all, stumped.
Shikamaru sighs, like he's resigning himself to something. "Naruto's kind of like a hurricane… Or a wildfire. Nobikage?"
Naruto's chakra flares with golden joy.
The Monsters gain two new members.
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After saying goodbye to their newly-dubbed Nobikage, Sakura walks Ino back to her house at Ino's insistence.
"Wait here!" Ino tells her with quick grin, then darts into the house.
Sakura waits patiently. She remembers sensing the masked man in the park without even trying, but she wonders what would happen if she did. She closes her eyes and focuses, pushing all of her attention outward, seeking that flash fire feel of chakra.
She feels Ino's presence through the house's walls, her chakra like spring sunshine, weaker than Naruto's but with the same warm feeling. Her mother is near her and she feels steady, reassuring. Sakura can't feel anyone else in the house, so either Ino's dad isn't home or he's trying to hide his chakra. She hopes it's the first. Ino's dad has a really scary look in his eyes sometimes, like he can see right through her. Ino complains about it often, since it's almost impossible to deceive him or get away with anything.
Ino's presence brightens. Sakura stands up straight, opening her eyes just in time to see –
"Ta-da!" Ino says, "It's the surprise! Kaa-san made it after I told her about you beating up that nasty old man."
Ino's holding a little cupcake with Fight! Sakura-chan! written on it in icing. Sakura feels tears well up at the sight.
"Thank you," She says, her voice watery, "A-and thank your kaa-san for me too, please. This is – this is really, really nice."
("Shut up, Ino-pig! I'm the one he's going to marry!")
Sakura throws her arms around Ino to silence her own voice.
xxxxxxxx
Sakura grabs all the books on codes and encrypted texts that she can carry. Her mother is baffled by her choices, dithering next to the children's section they usually peruse.
"I want to write a diary in code." Sakura announces. It isn't lying, because it's almost true. Like looking at picture upside down and seeing a donkey when really it was a horse. It was true from one angle.
She has to write her dreams down so she never forgets anything important, but she can't risk someone finding them. The only answer is a code.
"Oh… why?" Her mother's supportive smile flickers. Sakura's parents are both shinobi, but they've never said anything about Sakura following in their footsteps.
"Because I don't want any boys reading it." Sakura says sternly, pinning her mother with a serious look, "So, don't tell anyone. Please."
"Okay, okay! It'll be our secret." Her mother hides a smile behind her hand. Sakura wonders if she'll always be so easy to fool, or if she'll learn that Sakura's not a wide-eyed little girl anymore. Or maybe Sakura's guilt will eat her up before that happens.
With her mother safely squared away in the botanical section, Sakura looks around to make sure no one's watching, and opens her first book.
She writes detailed notes specifying all known codes used by Konoha and other nations – though she assumes none were in current use, otherwise they wouldn't be available for the public to read – and discards them all, one by one. She doesn't want to use a code anyone would recognise, which means she has to make up her own and make sure it doesn't have any similarities or overlap with a code that had already been broken.
After an hour of solid reading and extensive note-taking, Sakura finally creates a working code that manages to confuse even her. She gathers up every page with her writing on it and shoves it all into her bag.
She's slipped a book on fire ninjutsu into the pile without her mother noticing. Hopefully, she can learn something to dispose of the code. It has to only exist in her head, so no one can copy it.
Sakura practises the basics of fire ninjutsu a few hours later in the garden, under the cover of several large trees. She told her mother she wanted to sit in the shade and write her encoded diary. Her mother waved her off with a smile, on her way to visit a friend. Sakura's parents didn't leave her home alone often or for very long, so she had to really make use of the time she had.
The book says to mould boiling chakra in your stomach and then breathe it out as fire. Sakura sits with the pages spread evenly in the grass, keeping her eyes closed.
She tries to focus on how she had felt when she sensed the shinobi's chakra the day before. Energy was buzzing all around her. Life in the trees, the grass, the animals hiding in the bushes. She can feel it all. She tries to turn that sense inward, to peek into her own body and see what was there. To her dismay, there's just a flicker of chakra in the massive, cavernous space inside her. She tries pulling on the chakra, but it sputters and nearly goes out entirely. Sakura feels faint and pulls back, unsure of what would happen if her tiny bit of chakra was used up, but unwilling to risk testing it. Another thing to read up on. She thinks of the chakra as a spark, and imagines blowing on it to feed it. She feels some kind of response from the well deep inside her, then, far too quickly to stop, the chakra shoots up through her body and out of her gasping mouth –
– and a hand clamps over her face, smothering the flames before they can reach further than her skin. Heat sears her lips and chin in a sudden shock of pain. Sakura wobbles, her well almost run dry, and her head meets someone's shoulder as she droops forwards.
"Huh?" She says, her mouth awash with agony.
"Shh," A boy says, patting her on the back, "Don't talk, silly girl. You could've really hurt yourself."
Silly girl?
Energised by indignation, Sakura pushes back to glare into the boy's face. He is pale, with dark, messy hair and a small smile. She doesn't recognise him at all, but his eyes seem a little… significant, somehow.
"'m 'kay," Sakura mumbles, trying not to move her lips, 'doesn't 'urt."
"And I'm the Empress of the Universe." The boy informs her tartly, raising his eyebrows.
Sakura frowns at him.
"I was kidding. There's no such thing. There is however, such a thing as ranks for jutsu to prevent untrained idiots killing themselves attempting something far beyond their level. Katon is dangerous. How old are you? I don't believe your Academy Teacher taught you this."
He thinks she's an Academy Student? She can't help smiling, despite how it pulls at her burns. She holds up four fingers.
"You're four? Wow. Okay, little firefly. One last question, then I take you to the hospital. Who taught you? You can manipulate your chakra enough to attempt Katon – well, that's… not normal. Your parents putting in a little extra training before you start at the Academy?"
Sakura shakes her head and grabs one of the pages she had meant to destroy. She eyes him suspiciously and pulls a pen from her pocket. She writes 'no one taught me. I read it all in the library. I wanted to try it on my own. It was going to work, then you smooshed the fire in my face.'
"I stopped you from igniting paper on grass on a dry day under a tree with low-hanging branches." He points out wryly, then pauses. "You… you read about the jutsu once and decided to try it out, all on your own? And… you nearly did it?"
Sakura nods, though she'd argue that she did do it.
"Well… it's a baby Itachi." The boy says, gaping a little, "A tiny, pink-haired miracle. Has your mother ever met a man named Fugaku?"
"How should I know?" Sakura frowns, wincing at the tight, sore feel around her mouth. Something suddenly occurs to her and she gasps, grabbing at the boy's hand. Sure enough, the flames had licked at his skin when he pushed the fire back into her mouth.
Her bottom lip quivers.
"Oh." He says faintly.
"My fault." Sakura says, tears springing up. She holds the boy's hand very sadly, then –
(She spreads her hands over a dying woman's chest. Her palms glow bright, casting the woman's pale skin in an eerie glow. Her mouth and chin are black with blood. She gazes at Sakura with an odd look in her eye. She's not dying anymore.)
She did that.
Or, she will do that.
Heal.
Sakura remembers how gently she pushed chakra into the woman's body, how it was harder to do because she was crying and frightened, but this time she's not scared at all. She takes the boy's hand with purpose and tries to find that spark of chakra again, to push it through the boy's skin. Already she can remember how to deal with burns, you have to seep into the skin and repair the damage –
"Oi!" The boy yelps, ripping his hand away. She nearly topples over, but he steadies her with a movement far too quick to see. "None of that," He scolded, "You've barely got enough chakra to fill a thimble. Don't waste it trying something impossible."
Sakura glares at him defiantly. It is not impossible. She'd healed lots of people. And fish. Lots!
She lets him see that on her face, her absolute confidence in her abilities and annoyance at his doubt.
He huffs a mirthless laugh, "Oh man… You'll be a terror in a few years, won't you?"
She points at his hand, allowing herself a small smile of pride. She was a terror now.
He glances at his hand, actually twisting it to look at the whole thing, as if he had forgotten where the burn was. Well. Where it had been. The skin is now unmarred, pale and perfect once more.
"You – you – how did you – no," He says, something oddly solemn in his eyes now, "You didn't do this. You got that? If anyone ever asks, you tell them you can't do anything. You have to pretend to be average. Are you listening to me? If anyone finds out what you can do without any training at all, I – you'll be in big trouble. Okay? It's like your little coded pages – "
Sakura opens her mouth, outraged that he'd somehow peeked without her noticing, but he cuts her off with an impatient hand.
" – listen to me. You wanted to keep your notes a secret. So just take it a little further, and keep the whole thing a secret. 'cause if you didn't, and your parents found out, they would be really mad at you."
Sakura blinks up at him, lacing her fingers together. She feels tears forming again, "They wouldn't…"
"They would." He says calmly, so calmly that she knows he is lying. His chakra isn't calm at all.
Sakura knows arguing with him won't get her anywhere. And it isn't as though she's been planning on telling her parents about the dreams, or what she's trying to do. But even if someone did find out and she did get in trouble, it wouldn't matter. Because she's going to be Naruto's best friend, no matter what.
"Hey, why didn't you heal your face?" He looks guilty, "I should've taken you to the hospital the moment it happened. I should've thought of another way to stop you. You should always heal your wounds before your comrades, you know. The medic is the most important person on the team. If you're alive, they still have a chance. Do you understand me? You need to put yourself first."
Sakura wrinkles her nose. He just laughs, apparently over whatever solemnity had gripped him.
"I'm Uchiha Shisui." He says. Sakura waits for a dream, but nothing happens. Just a crow cawing overhead. The rush of wind sounds like a river.
"Haruno Sakura," She says, just like her parents had taught her, and continues with a practised flow, "My parents are Mebuki and Kizami and they're chuunin and you shouldn't mess with me because they're very strong and mean, so there."
"Chuunin, hm?" He says seriously, but his chakra ripples like laughter, "I'll be careful, then. Let's get you to the hospital."
And with that, he picks her up and they're gone in a flash.
So, the results of the last poll were… solidly inconclusive. It seems like most people really like the friendship and want to see more of it, and also more of tiny Sakura punching mean people, and the romance comes second. I'm totally okay with that. I think I'm going to write by the seat of my pants (which I never ever do btw, I usually try to plan every inch of a fic before I post it, which usually means I never end up posting it) and see who has the most natural chemistry with Sakura, if any. I'm not gonna start anything super shippy now, since she's, you know… four. But we'll see how this plays out!
I have very little of this story planned out. It's kind of nice to write without having to constantly check a guide, but then there's a huge blank horizon that I can't see past and I'm like oh god why have I done this to myself. I'm trying not to write in my usual style so it's more like baby genius Sakura's level, but it's haaaard.
A wild Shisui appears! I know pretty much nothing about him except that he apparently has a sense of humour and wow, he's already my favourite Uchiha. Speaking of which, is Mikoto an Uchiha in the sense that she married one, or that she already was one before she married Fugaku? Because she has identical colouring to every other Uchiha. Was she a ninja? Did she do more than die on Itachi? I want to know, Kishi!
I've literally never written anything in present tense and it's SOOOO hard. Why do I do these things to myself?
Hope you all liked this, since I really wasn't expecting so many people to read the first chapter! Thanks, everyone!
Quick poll for fun:
What would you change in Naruto if you could?
I would either change the reason for Naruto's shitty childhood or have Tsunade adopt him and raise him as a Senju. I'd also make Sakura's character development consistent, she has a nice flow of improvement up to the chuunin exams, where she gets a wonderfully cathartic wake-up call in The Forest of Death, but then after that, despite declaring everyone would have to watch her back, she's slotted neatly on the sidelines. I'd also make it so that Sasuke isn't a heartless robot in part 2 who treats everyone who loves him like shit but hahahaha that's just my opinion.
I guess this fic is my version of the manga if it had been called Sakura.
