Reviews!

ArmCannos34: Thank you!

Biclops: Thanks! I really do my best to put original content in my stories, and the flaying bit is something that just seemed natural considering what Sabella actually is and how chakra works!

libraryrockerr: I love Lee! All these cuties around Sabella ^^ and yeah, that'll hurt

calcu22: Prooooobably, maybe traumatized a few. Maybe.

Madgridal-in-Training: Yes he is!

Pizzas Cat: Thanks!

Anon from November 25th: probably. too bad I'm too lazy to go back and change it!

The seven days that followed involved Sakura sitting outside at lunch with Naruto, while Lee ran laps and they cheered him on. She still wasn't sure that she was going to keep trying to become a ninja, but she could certainly encourage those who wanted to.

There was, at the back of her mind, always the traitorous thought of how easy it would be to be a regular person. To be a retail worker, or a cook, or any number of other things. She was eleven, the sky was the limit, and in this world it was clear that they didn't have anything even remotely like child labor laws. So she didn't have to wait another five years to get a job.

Or, to move away from the poor couple who had lost their daughter. Maybe some day they would get her back, but for right then she couldn't do anything.

And she couldn't do anything with chakra. She had tried, once, but cut it short when it started to feel like her skin was going to blow up again. She didn't want to repeat that little episode.

Having no skin hurt.

It did make her wonder though. She had seen it, when the skin had come off. Seen the flash of pink deep beneath the red, red, red of her blood of muscles. Pink. Pink like her mother, like her sister. Their father had never had any Spark to him. He had been mundane. All too human.

Sabella flipped the knife in her hand, looking down at the dull edges. It was for practice, and they probably had to throw it harder than a regular one. Good practice, she supposed, but her aim absolutely sucked. She couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.

Which was disappointing. She liked the idea of being a markswoman. But, it was what it was.

She was caught up in her thoughts when someone screamed her not-name.

"Sakura!"

She looked up from the practice kunai, one that she had swiped from practice earlier, to see Ino running towards where she had sat on the ground. She lay the knife down beside her.

"Ino, what's up?" she asked, craning her neck up to look at the little girl. Her hair wasn't quite as long as it was at the start of the original series.

"What's up with you?" the blonde demanded, propping her hands on her hips.

Sabella paused. She had been acting pretty funny lately, from the other girl's perspective. Nothing like who she had been. She didn't care for Sasuke, or school work, or anything like that.

Instead of having a real answer, she shrugged.

"I dunno. None of my old hobbies seem interesting anymore."

"And your chakra control? Where did that go? What happened to your arms?!" Ino was practically yelling now. Sabella paused. Could it be that the blonde was worried about her? If she recalled correctly Ino and Sakura had been friends when they were little, and Ino had tried to save her during the disastrous chunin exams.

Huh.

Sabelle grinned and reached up to pinch the other girl's cheek, pull it away to show her teeth/

"Aw, were you worried about me?" she teased.

Ino slapped her hand away, cheeks flushed darkly.

"I was not! Why would I care about you, forehead girl?!" she shrieked. Sabella laughed and stood up to swing an arm around Ino's shoulder.

"Hey, hey, lets forget the whole Sasuke thing, huh? You're welcome to him!"

Ino stared at her like she had lost her mind. To be fair, Sabella would have thought she had if she didn't know her heritage so well. Actually, the whispering in the back of her mind still put doubts in her thoughts.

"I-what?" was all Ino could seem to say.

Sabella grinned at her again.

"I''m bored of this fight. I want to do something else, focus on something else. So you're welcome to Sasuke, and I'll just be your friend again, yeah?" she reasoned like it was the most natural thing in the world. Flippantly.

"There's something wrong with you," Ino shoved her away. "Are you sick or something?"

Sabella shrugged. "I don't think so. I was, but I'm getting better. Is that a no?" she pouted up at Ino.

The little girl pulled away, frowning at Sabella.

"It's- I don't know!" she yelled. She yelled a lot. But, she was eleven. Sabella was seven years older than her, sort of. Not that it mattered anymore, she was friggin eleven as far as everyone else was concerned.

"It's cool," Sabella shrugged without care. If Ino didn't want to be her friend that was fine. She would make other friends. Sabella was friendly and sociable, and people came easy to her. She wasn't worried about Ino.

Ino was staring at her back as she walked away.

Sabella stared in the mirror at Sakura's face. She could see it already that she was going to be beautiful when she grew up. Sabella had been too, though she hadn't had pink hair. Well, once she had played with dyes, but that was awhile ago.

Sabella played with Sakura's long hair, still thinking about what to do with it. The obvious solution was cut it short. Past that there was tying it back or yanking it into pins and braids, but Sabella was, at the core of her being, a creature of vanity and freedom. Those did not suit her.

The color, that absolutely was going to stay. She loved it. It bright and light and her hair was so soft.

It would make it harder to blend in to the forest, but all she needed was a hood. Black, maybe? Yeah, and green too. And pink.

Sabella's musings were cut off when there was a sudden, frantic knocking on her window. Her window. Why her window?

The girl left the vanity to peak out, finding Naruto clinging to the ledge, his face poking up above it. Sabella opened the window at once.

"Hi," she waved, "What'cha dooooin?"

"Are you gonna quit the Academy?!" he blurted, grabbing her shoulders. Sabella jerked from the sudden, hard hold on her body. Naruto's blue eyes were wide and his brows were furrowed. It took her a minute to work out that he was scared. Oh.

"Who told you that?" she took his hands and eased them off of her shoulders to hold between them. On a second thought she pulled him over to the bed to sit down. He held onto her hands like a life line. She didn't know why he was so upset.

"Someone said that 'cause you can't use chakra or any jutsu that means that you'll never graduate and be a ninja and if you'll never graduate than you wouldn't stay and then you definitely wouldn't be a ninjaandyoucan'tleavewhenwejustbecamefriendspleas!"

Sabella blinked at him once, twice, thrice, trying to work out exactly what he had just vomited into her ears.

"Um. I don't know if I'm going to be a ninja or not. I don't think that you have to be able to use chakra to be one, or else we wouldn't have martial arts classes so often. But I also, I don't know that I would be that good. I'm not super strong, and if I can't use chakra that cuts out a lot too."

"But you're smart and nice and pretty and- and- and you're my friend and you can't leave!"

Sabella looped her arm around his neck to pull him into a hug. The boy stiffened before he grabbed her and squeezed the life right out of her ribs. She rubbed his back slowly.

"Hey now, it's okay," she soothed, her voice going all quiet. "Whatever I decide to do, that won't make me stop being your friend, doll. I'm- I'm afraid," she admitted softly, "If I can't use chakra I can't make clones and move rocks or make dragons or anything cool like that. And if I can't do that then, even if I am a ninja, I could be an easy target."

Her eyes closed, her lower lip quivered.

"I could die."

Naruto hugged her tighter before he pulled back to look at her face. His cheeks were all red and his eyes were getting puffy. Sabella hadn't thought that she meant so much to him.

"No you won't," he said it with unwavering conviction. "You'll be strong! And if you can't beat them up, you can trick them! Or, or something. And if you can't do it, then I'll protect you! I swear!"

"You- Naruto," she shook her head. "You can't go around making promises like that. It's sweet that you want to try to protect me but you can't always be there. Things happen."

"I will!" he insisted, leaning closer to her. "I'll protect you no matter what, I already promised! What kind of Hokage would I be if I can't even protect my friends?!"

Sabella looked at him before she sighed softly. Naruto's mind was made up, there was no changing it now. If worse came to worse, she could always pull another Houdini, she guessed. But that might bring Michael.

She swallowed down the memories of the man who had murdered her family.

"A promise, then," she squared her shoulders and grabbed Naruto's hand before she locked their pinkies together. "I won't give up one becoming a kunoichi, and you'll protect me if I can't protect myself."

Naruto grinned so bright it was blinding.

"Deal!"