Class was about how I imagined it would be. We did reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as history. That part was incredibly brief, probably for good reason but I was also beginning to believe that no one bothered to write it down. Oh certainly we knew the Kage and the villages and when they were formed but dates were spotty and inconsistent.

It annoyed me to no end.

Nothing was concrete and if you wanted to know anything you had to take it from-mouth-information. One reason I was so thankful for being close to the Hokage, I could bother him with endless questions. I didn't, of course. Not endless ones at least. Just some, now and again when I was sitting in his office.

I did that a lot, hiding away from the world. Strange, seeing as I had once been so sociable. It was all strange really. The series that I had reread several times was now my life, the part of my last life that I had tried desperately to hide was now all encompassing this one.

It was a little bit scary.

I couldn't tell anymore if I was Rin or Felicity, or both or neither one. I wished I could have asked someone, anyone about it, but there was no one I could go to. Playing things close to the chest was how I got through my life time. It would have to be how I got through this existence as well.

At the end of the day that's what I did. I went home or to the office as quick as I could once Kunoichi classes let out.

Kunoichi classes were, by far, my favorite part of the day.

They were the only place where everything was absolute and concrete and where I excelled. I already knew how to twist a boy around my finger, so that was easy, and everything else was none variable. This flower means this, these ones are poisonous, this is how you address a person of this stature. All of it made sense. I didn't really have friends there for a few weeks, largely thanks to the fact that nearly everyone avoided me. If I wanted to talk to someone I had to instigate the conversation.

Which is what I did our second week of class.

Little Sakura Haruno was one of the shyest people I had seen in this world, trying to hide her self behind her hair. It was weird that it was her forehead and not her hair that she was being picked on for, considering it was a few shades shy of neon. Also ironic, considering that my hair was more natural of a shade than hers and I got tomatos smashed into my face for it.

"What's wrong with your head?" one girl, Ami asked Sakura one day when I was within hearing distance. I looked up from the snap dragons I had been inspecting, watching Ami and her two followers stand above Sakura in a position all too familiar to me.

Sakura looked up, shrinking into the high collar of her shirt.

"Did you hit it against something?" one of the girls asked in fake concern.

Another laughed, high pitched and loud. "It's so big it probably hits everything!"

I rose slowly to my feet, deciding that that was as good a time as any to begin my planning and alterations. I walked over, interrupting before more insults could be tossed into the girls face.

"You know that's rich coming from someone who got their hair cut from a lawn mower," I commented off handed, propping my hand on my hip and falling into the familiar pattern of confrontation. Normally when I did this I wasn't at the bottom of the food chain though.

It was intimidating.

It was a challenge.

It was exhilarating.

"Like you're one to talk tomato head," Kasumi butted in.

I arched a brow and gave her a royal look, breaking from the child that I supposedly was. "Did you intentionally get that perm or are you so bad at teasing your hair it got stuck? And really, that dress, with your body?" my nose scrunched up delicately.

This was a role I could play.

This was, in fact, the roll I was best at. It was in parts a mask, and it was also, in other parts, myself. I had spent years trying to avoid being bullied, and so did the only thing I could that would guarantee that. I became the bully. And it felt good, to watch people bow their heads, shame painting their cheeks. It was a rush to have that kind of power over people, to be at the very top and be able to make or break someone with just a few words. It made me feel important, paramount.

The same way I felt watching the three girls start, looking at each other.

I was, after all, nobody. The village pariah, who all had instructions to stay away from. By all rights I should have been bending to their words and will, lower than dirt and smaller than dust. This was all assuming that I fit into the hierarchy at all. Which, right then, I didn't. I was breaking the rules, hands on my hips and superiority dripping off of my tongue. Physical violence I couldn't handle, having fruit thrown in my face and my hair yanked, I would cry. Verbal abuse was different. That was where I was the queen, where I ruled.

And these amateurs were trying to sit in my throne.

"Who do you think you are?" Ami asked, trying to look superior. My expression, built up of years that she did not have, cut her down and I saw her falter.

"Who do I think I am?" I repeated, "That's one of the least original things I've ever heard anyone ask. Who did you take argument lessons from? Those points are as sharp as a spoon."

"Well at least my hair doesn't look like it has a sunburn!" she tried to defend. I did one thing that few people ever seemed to think of when facing insults.

I laughed.

I watched the confusion cloud the girls face and the three looked at each other. They knew that this wasn't how things were supposed to go. They knew it was wrong of me to be there, acting as their better when I was the least respected person in the village. It wasn't how things worked.

It wasn't how things were done.

I didn't particularly care anymore. Once you fall from grace and die everything else looks pretty small in comparison.

Laughter was really the best medicine. If someone is trying to make you feel bad, laugh it off. Better yet, laugh at them. It makes them feel stupid, just like anyone else, and they'll back down real quick if they think that they're about to have the tables turned on them. It worked like a charm.

"Sh-shut up!" Ami shouted. I laughed harder, lips curled in a snarl aimed at her.

"You're just stupid!" Kasumi cried, her face turning as red as my hair.

"Come on guys," the last girl muttered, grabbing their hands and pulling lightly. "Let's get out of here."

I watched them go, remaining in place until they were occupied elsewhere. Only then did I let my shoulders drop and turn back to Sakura, who was staring up at me in surprise. I smiled at her, not the sharp, confident one I wore for the girls. That was the smile of the sun, bright and arrogant. The one I offered Sakura was a small curl of the lips, not enough to dimple my cheeks, dimmer but no less strong. A moonlight smile.

"You alright?" I asked, offering her my hand.

Hesitantly she took it, wiping off her eyes as I pulled her to her feet.

"Y-yeah," she mumbled, riding her cheeks of tears.

"You know," I began, pulling my hand back to my side, "They only make fun of your forehead because they know you're sensitive about it. If you didn't hide it they wouldn't get anything out of picking on you." I spoke from experience. You had to pick targets carefully, or things might backfire.

Sakura ducked her head. "But, it's big."

"Yeah," I agreed, "And? Who cares?"

Sakura shifted from foot to foot. "Doesn't it bother you, when they say your hair is like a tomato?" she asked quietly.

I shook my head and twirled a long strand around my finger. It was a lie, I didn't like my hair, but Sakura didn't need to know that.

"Nah. I don't like it when they throw things, but their comparison is wrong. My hair isn't like tomatoes. It's more like strawberries."

Sakura looked at me, confused and not quite understanding but nodding anyway.

"O-okay…"

I bit back a sigh. Lack of confidence this girl had.

"Here, try wearing your hair out of your face tomorrow, see if anyone notices your forehead," I instructed, watching her hesitate before agreeing.

The next day she did as I asked and no one said a word.

From then on Sakura sat next to me during class, and Naruto wasn't the only one of us to have a friends.

Chakra is bullshit.

This I decided sitting on the ground, trying to get a leaf to stick to my forehead while Sakura already one there and on both cheeks. She didn't look like she was struggling at all! Everything I tried to get it to stick I would end up sending the lead darting up into the air before physics took hold and it spiraled out of grip.

Needless to say I was not happy.

Sakura couldn't seem to understand why I was having so much trouble with using less. I had an idea. While most children had the problem of having on a little more chakra than you needed to survive, meaning that they had to drag it out and force it to do what they wanted.

I was the exact opposite, no doubt my brother was as well. For us the energy was straining to get out, fighting to burst from our bodies as even the slightest nudge. Trying to get only just enough to stick a leave to me was like trying to funnel an ocean through a garden hose. It just didn't work.

When the energy was released it came gushing out with a vengeance.

As I said before. Chakra is bullshit.

"You just have to push a little bit out," Sakura tried to explain for perhaps the twelfth time. I was starting to get annoyed. I resisted the urge to snap at the girl, reminding myself that she was still young and didn't understand that things weren't always the same for everything.

Snapping wouldn't do anything helpful, it would just send the girl back into her shell, the one I was trying to coax her out of.

Children were so damn delicate.

"It's not so much pushing some out as keeping enough in," I tried to explain again. "I can't get not enough to make it stick. It keeps flying off."

Similar to what my temper was about to do.

"If you push too much out for one leaf why not use more?"

I stopped my one sided glaring match with the offending piece of foliage, head snapping up to stare at my pink haired friend. More than one leaf? Iruka had advised the class not to try more than one at a time because it could put strain on the still-developing-chakra-system of five year olds. Sakura and I sat far away from the rest of the class, under a tree on the far side of the practice area. From there I could see my brother trying to talk to Iruka while Sasuke hung back, watching them. It seemed that Naruto was having just as hard a time as I was.

Technically Sakura wasn't supposed to have three leaves sticking to her face, but with Iruka preoccupied she had decided to try it out anyways. She was a regular rebel.

"More?" I repeated, "If I did that wouldn't I have to push the chakra out of different places? Wouldn't it do the same thing?"

Sakura paused. I heard her hum, watched the gears start turning in her head. The girl was a genius. I was technically twenty two and I doubted I was as smart as she was. To be fair I'd never cared much about school before. I liked reading, loved it in fact, but that was as far as my academic interest had gone. I was a cheerleader and an A-lister, had had no need for math, science or anything like that past graduating.

To be assured I took my classes and passed them, with B's in maths, C's in most sciences and low A's in social studies and literature. That didn't mean that I remembered what I'd been taught five years later, or that most of what I knew was even applicable.

I was broken out of my musings by Sakura once more.

"What if you put out the minimal amount of chakra you could from one area and spread it out over the rest?" she wondered.

My brows pinched and I gave a very intelligent sounding 'huh?'

"Like with peanut butter. You glob out a bunch of it into one area, and then you spread it out with a knife."

That made a surprising amount of sense.

"Okay, like peanut butter," I muttered quietly, taking the leaf in hand and tilting my head back. I pushed as little chakra out as I could then, focusing on the warm energy, pushed that small amount out and across the skin, keeping as much inside as I could. I placed the leaf there, taking in a deep breath and praying that it worked.

The leaf stuck in place.

I laughed in triumph.

I am not stupid. Contrary to what my grades will tell you, what my teachers will tell you and what just about anyone else would say I was not stupid. I didn't care about math and science (with the exception of anatomy) was a bore, so I will admit I had a few short comings there. Which is where most people think 'intelligence' really is. My knowledge, what I like and care about, are not what people normally mean when they say someone is smart. History, literature, and people is where my brain lies. I had gotten the highest score of any class when I took Phycology, and no one knew the classics as well as I.

This didn't mean I was horrible at the others. I knew the quadratic equation and how atoms were put together, same as any one.

Now, this being said, there are simply some things that don't make sense to me. Namely, chakra and how to use it. I was lucky that I'd chosen Sakura to be my friend. That girl picked up concepts faster than anyone I'd ever seen. By our third year in the academy she had far surpassed me. Of course by the third year we had begun working through quadratic equations and the makeup of the periodic table.

Why a bunch of murderers-to-be would need to know this I had no idea.

It still seemed to hold no practical application, and before long I just gave up on it. I'd still been in geometry when I'd died the first time around, so around eight I started relying heavily on Sakura to help me out with those things. She didn't really need my help, except for me to be her friend.

Why she wanted that to me I had no idea. She could have fallen in with almost anyone else just as easily as me, once her confidence came up.

There were three groups of girls our age.

The ones that ran with Ami, the ones that ran with Ino, and the rest of us. Used to be 'with Felicity', 'with Taylor' or 'the masses'. I miss those days.

By the time our third year rolled around most of the girls had dropped from the system after being told that they didn't make the cut(it wasn't kicking out, just encouraging that they leave) or getting so fed up with failing over and over again that they gave up. This left us with approximately nine girls left. There was Ami, Kasumi, and Haru in one group. They were still bullies, but they left Sakura and I alone after a few more verbal beat downs.

Ino and her group were primarily brought together as what Sakura and I called 'Sasuke's Stalkers', though Ami and hers fell into that category as well. Sakura had been offered to hang out with them by Ino, but had chosen me instead.

Along with Sakura and I Hinata was also counted as 'the rest of us'. She didn't hang out with us and I didn't ask her to. The girl was just too shy, I couldn't picture hanging out with her as being very fun at all.

Instead I mentioned her to my brother one day after school as 'this girl who wants to be friends with you but is too shy'.

The next day he asked her to cut class with him to go to Ichiraku.

Iruka was not pleased when she stumbled out a 'yes'.

Speaking of, Naruto had finally gotten into the reputation he had as a prankster. He brought trouble down on top of him, and on several occasions, me. What my brother did to people for being mean to us and what I did were two very different things.

He did harmless child things, like painting walls or throwing the rotten eggs we were sold, or setting up booby traps that would do more to humiliate than harm.

I slipped into houses and ducked through vents, whispering things when they thought they were alone and pushing objects just a few inches out of place when a room was left. I would do this until my targets inevitably had a mental breakdown or moved.

I don't know what the Hokage thought. He had yet to address that it was us that did these things even though Naruto left our shared name on everything he did.

So far things were going about the way that I figured they would.

It wasn't until Sasuke came to school with a cloud over his head that I remembered what else happened when we (or everyone else as it was) were eight.