Two of the Haruno Household remained blissfully ignorant to the rabbit goddess' visit to their little patch of land on the Westernmost Coast of the region named Shiyama, but there was one who remembered. Sighing quietly, Sakura flopped back on her playmat. The ceiling was a grimy white above her, as most were – the hygiene standards didn't seem to be as good as they had in her last life, nor was paint so readily available – but she had long since decided she would make do with what she had.

There was nothing else which could be done. She had died, and three years ago she had been born there again. Kaguya had been there too, and yet she had been different. Not different enough to keep her from screaming, but it certainly made Sakura wonder.

Had those really been rabbit ears attached to the sides of Kaguya's head?

Yawning, Sakura went back to her reading, knowing her parents would be away on business for a little while longer. Why they had thought it alright to leave a three-year-old with absolutely no supervision made her question their intelligence this time around… Then again, she hadn't exactly behaved as a normal little girl – not that her parents had ever questioned, if they had actually noticed anything at all. There weren't too many children her age about – though there seemed to be plenty a couple of years older or younger, not that she had interacted with them much. Though the number of children wasn't all that surprising. They were a fairly large town, even as far west as they were in the world. The winter had just been harsher when she had been born compared to the other years, and the number of pregnancies and infants that had survived it had been slim.

East was where most things were based, Sakura had learnt, and only poor hicks lived as far west as she did. In the east, there were said to be cities made out of brick and stone – the roads paved with tile rather than the mud she always saw whenever she looked out of the window. But Sakura had been born in the west, and that was likely where she would stay.

"Just means I have more to do," she muttered, rolling onto her front, pushing herself up onto her short stubby legs. She could still feel her chakra, and that meant her healing abilities could easily be regained. That was her goal for the time being, given the lacking information on her new world. Had it been the Elemental Nations she would have been fine – she would have simply aspired to become a shinobi yet again – but her new lands didn't look even remotely the same.

There was only one large continent on the map in her father's library surrounded by sea on all sides. A tiny spot of land in a vast ocean, or so it looked like in relation to the enormity of the Elemental Nations. Or maybe it was just that large? Sakura didn't know, and she likely wouldn't be getting her answers anytime soon thanks to her undersized body.

Toddling over to the bookshelf, she pried it from the shelf it was on, frowning as she read. The language was the same dialect of the Elemental Nations, so thankfully there were no problems with her reading it. Her parents found it adorable, thinking she couldn't understand a single word on the pages. It gave them an excuse to interact with her beyond babying her, and it gave Sakura an excuse to giggle and entertain her parents with her attempts to read.

They weren't attempts, not that Sakura would even inform them of the fact.

She was happy there, despite how her last life had ended. This world was strange and new, and Sakura fully intended to explore every inch of it when she had the chance.

Sakura was well aware of her tendency to drive her parents insane with worry – something they had learnt to do rather swiftly as soon as they had let her toddle off into the village at the respectable age of six. She had vanished from her mother's side in an instant, returning to two worried parents hours later, having finished with her exploration of the rather tiny village. It was barely a tenth of the size of Konoha, and there was only one other person aside from her parents – one child – that she recognised.

Ami.

Her old bully, and she was roughly a year older than her, not that she had gone over to say hi. She had just watched from afar after trying, and failing, to get her chakra to stick her feet to the walls. She still a long way to go with her chakra, and her stores were still building from the thimbleful she had been born with.

Nobody else in the village could use or teach her how to use chakra, she had confirmed in her little wander about the place, and it made her wonder what role chakra actually played in her new world. Perhaps she would find out if she ever visited a larger town, she mused, tilting her head as she waited for her allotted time allowed outside.

She had read through all the books in her home by that point, and books were hard to come by in a village as remote as theirs, so boredom was a rather large issue whilst cooped up in her room. She couldn't even practice her chakra control – given the few methods she knew were either too advanced for her level of control or they were too destructive.

Her chakra was different now too. It had taken awhile for her to notice, thanks to it being sedentary in her core whilst growing, but it moved sluggishly through the pathways in her body. It felt thick and gloopy, and overall rather hard to move. She had already tried to make it circulate upon reaching her sixth birthday – when according to old Konoha textbooks was the best time to begin chakra control for those without strong shinobi heritage – to no avail.

Still, if there was one thing she had learnt from pursuing Sasuke all those years ago – it was how to be stubborn.

She sat in the middle of her room, legs crossed and a cushion underneath to keep her comfortable as she dived into meditation.

It was there as always – her chakra pool – and it was the size of a large puddle to her mind's eye. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration. Now for the tricky part. She reached out, willing her chakra to move, scowling when it remained still. But her chakra wasn't about to defeat her stubborn will.

Tug.

Sakura pulled yet again, firmer that time. It was like there was some sort of barrier keeping her chakra from her. All she needed to do was break that barrier – something she had been chipping away at for the better part of half a year.

Tug.

Tug.

Gritting her teeth, she yanked on her chakra, grip firm on the inky blue strands. "Come on!" she hissed, pulling with all her might. The thread of chakra stretching until it looked an awfully pale blue. "Just a bit more…"

Tug.

SNAP.

The thread broke, and Sakura's eyes shot open as the chakra thread bounced back into the heart of her core as it shrank inwards, glowing with a blue light as it exploded through her body. She'd done it. Sakura could feel a grin forming on her face, even as her body started to glow with the blue light of her chakra.

Her chakra had been released from its core, and it hummed around her, as if to greet her. Like an old friend. But it was as her chakra was being released that she noticed it. A second source of sorts, and it glowed white. Like the moon. It hovered there, hidden behind where her chakra core had once been trapped – it was no wonder she hadn't noticed it in her bid to free her chakra.

The sounds of doors opening and closing had her concentration snapping. Footsteps creaked on the stairs, and Sakura was abruptly reminded she was glowing. Cursing silently, she pulled a large portion of her chakra back to her core, leaving only the barest trickle running through her pathways, making it spiral like ribbon against the edges of her chakra pathways. Controlling her chakra had always been fun for her – the sheer amount of manipulation she had over it was alarming compared to most others.

It had made her feel special, and if there was one thing she liked – it was feeling special. Her teammates had been far too special for their own good, and it had taken her years of hard work just to be able to share the spotlight with them.

She would be lying if she didn't want to feel special in her new world.

Some part of her craved the feeling, along with craving strength. Strength was needed to survive, and weird chakra or not, she would be clawing her monstrous strength back.

"Sakura!" Her mother popped her head around the door. "Lunchtime!"

A smile spread over her face, and Sakura leapt to her feet, cheeks reddening as her stomach growled ridiculously loud. "Hee," she mumbled, scratching the back of her head sheepishly as her mother laughed.

"And what have you been doing to work up such an appetite, little bean?" Mebuki tilted her head, crouching down to poke at her ticklish sides. "I do hope you haven't wasted all that energy of yours," she said, opening the door for Sakura. "I know you love your exploring."

"Un!" Sakura hurried out the door, racing for the stairs.

"Walk down those stairs, Sakura!" her mother yelled behind her, and Sakura huffed as she slowed her pace to ensure she didn't fall down the stairs. Her body was younger, and far more breakable than what she was used to, thanks to her chakra being locked away in her core in its entirety for six years and a bit.

"Walking!" Sakura chirped, carefully reaching the bottom, yelping as she was picked up and swung in a circle.

"How's our favourite little bean today?" her father queried. "Still making your way through your books?"

"Yep!" Sakura nodded.

"That's my girl!" Kizashi said, smiling as he set her back on her feet. "You go and sit at the table, Kura – and don't forget to wash those hands of yours."

"Doing that," Sakura mumbled, heading into the bathroom – the one place in the house with some semblance of ancient plumbing. The water was cold, but Sakura had long since grown accustomed to that. They could only allow the water to be heated up when it came to baths, more so due to the amount of time it took to heat the water up to a satisfactory degree.

Humming quietly, she ran back to the dining room, all but leaping onto her chair – energised and very very hungry no doubt thanks to awakening her chakra and sending it through her coils for the first time.

She was looking forwards to her walk more than ever, though food was higher on the list of priorities and her stomach certainly agreed with her there.

Walking around the village a while after lunch always revealed something new to her eager eyes. The first time it had been a fox – a kind of animal dearly loved for some strange reason. It was odd to her, having lived in a village which despised foxes, but she'd had years to grow accustomed to the nuances of the slightly different culture of the villagers.

"Look!" She tugged on her father's wrist as she spotted the small fluffy creature darting across the path in front of them. "It's a—"

"Rabbit." Kizashi's lips twisted down. "How unlucky."

"'Coz it's a black rabbit?"

Her father blinked, looking down at her with a soft smile. "Black rabbits are far more welcomed than white ones, little bean."

Sakura blinked at the new information that had been dumped on her lap. Apparently there was an equivalent for the dislike of foxes Konoha once had – and it was the kind of creature foxes usually hunted. Maybe that was why foxes were liked. "Huh…"

"Come along," her father spoke, pulling at her wrist, but Sakura slipped it from his grasp and wandered into the bushes. "Sakura!"

"They're cute…" she mumbled, blinking as she stumbled out from the brush into a little forested area. The little black rabbit was still there, only this time it wasn't alone. Brown, grey, and black fluffy bodies hopped about, freezing in place as she darted out of the undergrowth in a flurry of leaves and twigs.

Chills ran down her spine, her father's shouts for her to come back fading as she caught sight of one of the rabbits – one which kept staring at her even as the other little fluffy creatures started moving away.

Milky purple eyes bore into her own, white fur ruffling in the wind as it simply waited there. Long ears perked up, pale nose twitching in her direction as her father came out of the bush behind her. "Sakura! Don't run off on me, little…"

"Papa—"

Kizashi lifted her from the ground. "We need to go, little bean," he whispered, cuddling her to his chest, and Sakura could only stare into those milky lavender eyes from over her father's shoulder. There was something about them which had her transfixed, a low tugging in her gut which made her want to go and pick the little creature up if only to snuggle her face into its soft white fluff.

"Dear?" Mebuki looked over at them as they came from the bushes, a paper bag of market goods bundled in her arms. "You look awfully pale…"

"We should go home," he said, a frown on his face. "There's an ill omen lurking about."

"What?" her mother asked, a confused expression on her face as Kizashi started on the path back home. "You know they're only superstitions… Rabbits can't hurt you…"

"It was a white rabbit, Mebuki," he said, and Sakura glanced over to see her mother's reaction. She didn't really understand why her father was so shaken – it was just a rabbit. Not even in Konoha had there been reactions like her father's own when faced with the most hated creature in the village.

"There have been—"

"It had purple eyes… like the ones from those paintings…" He stared at the ground as they walked. "How many rabbits do you come across with features like that?"