Lil: Thanks!
rickrossed: She could have done more if Kakashi bother to train her too! Girl got gypped.
Sazalei: Yes!
libraryrockerr: Proooobably, but honestly I have no beta so please excuse my (probably many) errors.
Wicked Neko: Yep! Ami never saw it coming ^^
Winterlover6: ^^
Guest from October 20th: Oh good! I'm really glad its not as confusing as I thought it would be, I have a lot of plot and a real explanation for why she took Sakura's body than just 'chance?'.
littleditto: a safe motto
orlha: I'm a bad person, I think I've finished one story in my whole career? maybe two? and they're 11!
calcu22: Thanks!
ArmCannos34: Thanks!
School was weirdly similar and weirdly different to Lafayette High School. For instance, they both had Blocks. They both had a lunch period. They both had desks that had no storage spaces inside of them.
Conversely, Lafayette taught french, calculus, and english humanities. Konoha Academy taught combat, jutsu, and pretty basic arithmetic.
The blocks Sabella had once had were irrelevant. Now all that mattered was that on even numbered days she had were dedicated to academic studies. Reading, writing, mathematics and history. A very basic science. And at least one hour outside, usually doing laps or light exercises.
On odd numbered they did outdoor things. Things like learning to pitch tents, read maps, and identify plants. Not to mention the actual physical side of their ninja-ing. The weapons work, the fighting, and all that.
It was on wednesday that they did things involving chakra. Mostly it was just practice. 'Feel for your chakra', channel it, practice your hand seals. Sabella could already feel her chakra just fine, so that was a plus. She could reach for it too.
Up until that day, a week after going 'back' to school, she hadn't tried to use any chakra at all. Until the day Iruka stood in front of the class, with all the little children in front of him, and cleared his throat.
"Today we'll practice the transformation jutsu. Everyone pair off!"
Sabella, naturally, went to Naruto. A lot of girls clustered around Sasuke, and Sabella felt a little left out of the infighting over who got to work with the little Uchiha. Part of Sabella wanted to swoop in and save him from the torture. Mostly, she was amused. The most popular boy and he hated all of the attention, something that Naruto would have killed for.
"You know the hand signs?" she asked, once they'd spaced themselves away from the others.
"Yeah!" Naruto looked excited at the thought. Sakura smiled at him and reached up to pat his head. He was cute.
"Show me!" she ordered, and he was quick to comply.
His hands moved steadily, from one hand sign to the next. At the last one he shouted, and Sabella found herself looking at… herself. Sort of. She was looking at Sakura, who she was still trying to get used to seeing when she looked into a mirror.
Sabella laughed in delight and grabbed his hands.
"You look perfect!" she exclaimed, eager to praise the cute little blond. Naruto beamed at her like the sun was stuck behind his teeth.
He was such a sweet boy.
"Now you," he encouraged. Sabella took her hands back and brought them in front of her chest. Her brow furrowed with concentration. She had felt her energy this whole time, but she hadn't drawn on any of it yet.
She concentrated, going through the motions and summoning the chakra to her skin.
There was a loud pop, but no smoke. Something fell in front of her eyes, fluttering to the ground. For some reason she was freezing.
Naruto stared at her in shock.
"How did you do that?!" he bounced closer to her.
Sabella stared at him. "Do what?" she asked. The girl looked down at herself, and saw a lot of red. She brought her arms up in front of her, separating her hands. The skin from her palms fell to the ground. The skin had left her forearms entirely, leaving it pulsing red and bloody.
She swallowed thickly. Then, she screamed bloody murder.
Kakashi didn't usually spend much time in the hospital. In fact he had something of a chronic aversion to it. Kakashi would not enter a hospital unless under pain of death or unconscious.
This time, it had been the latter, and now that he was conscious he was planning on sneaking out as quickly as he could. Until he happened to be lowering himself past a window the featured an odd sight. A little girl with pink hair was being treated by a doctor. That wasn't so weird.
What was weird was the fact that, from elbow down, she appeared to have been flayed.
The girl's eyes were locked on the medic working on her hands, who was equally intent on the task. Neither one of them noticed Kakashi watching the medic regrow her skin.
He wondered, idly, why it happened. And why Naruto Uzumaki was hovering over her shoulder, looking panicked.
Huh. Kakashi weighed his curiosity against being forced to stay in the hospital another day and the conclusion came easy.
He dropped down to the ground wandered off.
The skin around her hands was still tender a few days later, when she finally went back to school. At this rate she would be so far behind she would never catch up. If she hadn't already done most of this work years ago already.
Sabella may not have taken school seriously, but she knew enough to pass the classes of an eleven year old with flying colors. She was easily bored, not stupid.
She hadn't played around with chakra since her unfortunate incident, something that the doctors still couldn't explain. Sabella had her own theories. She was pretty sure that her soul was still settling into these new bones, and when she tried to use the chakra, which was spiritual and physical and mental energy all together, it had created some sort of corrosive reaction that destroyed her skin.
Or, maybe with an old soul in a young body when she tried to form the energy she made too much and it blew the skin right off, like too much water stuffed into a balloon, it ripped at the seams and send most of the skin flying.
She wasn't totally sure, but those sounded plausible. She didn't know how she was going to fix this.
"Sakura!" Naruto ran over to the desk she had picked out and skidded in next to her, stopping just short of touching the girl.
Sabella smiled at him sweetly.
"Hi, Naruto. What's up?"
The boy pulled a backpack off his back, which he usually didn't have, and ripped it open. From within he pulled out a bright orange notebook and slammed it on the desk. Sakura jumped in her seat, glancing between the book and the boy.
"Uh, Naruto?" she prompted, a little lost.
"I got your notes this time," he said, shoving the book at her. "My hand writings not so good and I didn't really get all of it but most of it is in there and Iruka-sensei said that if you have questions you can go in after class and-"
"Naruto," she cut him off gently. His mouth snapped shut and blue eyes were wide when they locked onto her. Sabella smiled gently.
"Thank you. That was very thoughtful of you to do," she praised quietly. Naruto's cheeks turned pink and he looked down, bashful. It was about the cutest thing Sabella had ever seen. She reached out and cupped his face between both of her hands, ignoring the twinge the motion caused, and leaned in close.
"Sa-u-wa?" he mumbled, brows furrowing.
"You are. So cute," she said softly.
Naruto's face heated up under her hands and his eyes got all wide. He sputtered between her hands.
Sabella let go and faced the front of the classroom as Iruka walked in, a smile on her face.
I got a pocketful of sunshine.
The seat on her other side was taken a few minutes later by a not-even-sheepish-looking Kiba, who plopped down with a puppy on his head. Sabella eyed him, her focus locked on the little ball of fluff. Such a cute boy. She had cute boys on both sides. A grin spread across her face. Her arms may still hurt, but this wasn't so bad.
She listened, vaguely, to Iruka telling them some weird formula. Mostly she was looking at Akamaru.
Her hand started inching towards him. Slowly. Slowly. Lifting up, finger tips inches from soft, fluffy, white fur…
"What are you doing?"
She paused, looking at Kiba, who had noticed her at some point and was staring at her. Sabella didn't move.
"The- petting?" She stumbled over her words.
Akamaru leaned further on Kiba's head to lick her fingers. Sabella's face lit up.
"Yes! Puppy!" she reached up to scratch behind his ears, petting the softness.
Kiba snorted at her. "You're weird," he accused.
"Don't insult Sakura!" Naruto lunged around her shoulder at Kiba, trying to swipe at his face.
"Hey!" he yelped and smacked back. Sakura promptly plucked Akamaru off his head and hopped onto the desk behind her, sending papers flying. She crouched, setting the puppy in her lap so she could pet him while he barked at Naruto and Kiba. The fight dissolved into fists in a matter of seconds.
Iruka came storming over and yanked the pair apart by the backs of their shirts, holding both boys up. Sakura finally freed Akamaru to go bark at Iruka's feet while he yelled at the two.
Naruto and Kiba were sent to sit out in the hall, while Sakura sat in her seat until they were released to lunch.
She would have stayed with Naruto for lunch, but they were held in for a detention. So she went outside to watch the upperclassmen run laps while she ate the lunch Sakura's mother had prepared for her. She watched the children run, the constant pace hypnotic.
She was halfway done when the bench clanged next to her with a boys shoes. Sabella looked over, surprised to see a boy with long hair and a white chinese looking shirt had come to a stop beside her.
"Um. Hi?" she offered.
"Hello! Are you Sakura Haruno?" he asked, leaning close to her. His bangs moved in the wind, revealing truly massive eyebrows.
"Hah, I guess I am," she set her apple back into her lunch box. Bento box. Whatever. "Why?"
"Is it true that you cannot use any chakra?"
Wow, he was blunt. Sabella shook her head.
"No," she said, and his face fell. "I mean, I can. But I'll skin myself."
His brows furrowed. Lee opened his mouth, then closed it, and for a moment Sabella thought that he might not say anything at all. Then, he asked, "Will you quit trying to become a shinobi?"
Sabella paused. That, sure would be a good excuse for her to give up. And if she did, if she did just fade into obscurity, she doubted anything would happen. She would be a civilian, go to a trade school, or something, and be nowhere near all the destruction. Minus Pein's attack, but everyone survived that so it was a moot point.
"I don't know."