Summary: I did not die, just to be reborn as a pink little menace whose job is to fangirl over some emo what's-his-name unable pull himself together.

Tag(s): OC, OC-reincarnates-as-Sakura, gender dysphoria

2. not the heroine you wanted

Here's the thing you need to know before we continue – if you asked whoever who knew me once upon a time in another world I called "home" on what they thought about me, they would say different things, but generally the same concept.

Calm, laid back, the go with the flow type or the chill in the hot summer full of teenagers in heat and pumped with adrenaline.

I wasn't exactly the troublemaker or the bully you find in a Hollywood-influenced high school you'd see play on television, nor was I the stereotypical nerd that got pushed around by jocks and whoever who thought they were above someone who decided to pursue the brainier aspects in life. I didn't really have different moods that my friends experienced, because how I lived my life was with what I liked to call the "in and out" tactic.

I exist in that comfort zone created by who I was acquainted with and I didn't exist when I decided not to involve myself in drama caused by hormones and teenage angst.

That's how I rolled, because I didn't like trouble and trouble didn't like me. Thankfully, I wasn't like those typical protagonists of fiction that had the trouble magnet problem and had no choice but to face them head on, or else they would die. That's how stories went, but not how real life went.

Reality is a little funny in that aspect – you either keep your head down for the rest of your life, or you raise it a tiny bit and suddenly the whole world is against your existence. Maybe the latter is bit of a dramatic, over exaggeration, but it was true. If the phrase "you are what you eat" can apply to a human being, then the same goes for this, replaced with how you lived your life and your life. Again; different things, but same concept.

You live your life how you wanted. Whether you choose to bring attention to yourself or be the shadow that no one notices or bothers to notice, it's a choice. Unlike those protagonists I always criticized and made fun of, living in reality is not like living in fiction. There is no god that dictates your every move, because you are the player of your own Monopoly.

If you want to buy that house? Go ahead. Want to move eight steps ahead? It's your call, man. If you have to go to jail? That sucks, but hey, you most likely brought it upon yourself, so shush, no complaints.

In the end, there is no other player that dictates you and reduces you into just a trinket on board to represent them.

Or so I liked to believe.

I don't think I'll be able to ever understand how or why this happened. It is completely impossible for me, an average twenty year old guy who spent the most of his life trying to live a satisfying life, to be now stuck in the body of a young girl. Let me continue – a young girl, who, from a silly, naïve brat chasing after her crush, would grow into the strongest female ninja of her generation (or at least, that's what the comic book said, right?), apprenticed under the strongest female ninja from, uhh, I don't know, two generations before?

Yeah, way to pressure a guy. Fucking assholes.

There is one thing that keeps me afloat from this entire mess.

First, I have knowledge, no matter how second handed or slightly inaccurate, about this fictional world, so it does give me a bit of an advantage no matter how crappy it is. Second, since I know what world I am now in, I can at least prepare for the worst. Hell, had I not known about Naruto from the bored nights of lurking on the Internet, I would go insane from thinking that I had been thrown into an alternate universe where child soldiers are of the norm. Also, this would have been completely foreign territory to me, so it could've gone very bad if I did not have even the tiniest bit of information, like fucking-up-bad.

As there are pros, there are cons to this.

First, I am a main character and as the general rule for all or any protagonist, they have to make sacrifices and be a general sunshine – in the literal and ironic sense – to get on with their life, which is the story. I cannot say I would make a terrible main character, but I would say this: I would fuck things up real bad.

From what I remember, Haruno Sakura is a passive aggressive fangirl on par with a prepubescent One Direction fangirl trying to claw her way to the front during a concert. She fangirls over the emo duck ass every waking moment of her life, thus trying to get his attention and broke a friendship with Ino – the blonde one with the super long bangs, right? –, because they were rivals in love, or some crap like that. She hits the main character, Naruto often, for god knows what reason and has an inner voice, which, for the sake of my sanity, I hope I won't have.

Other than that, her teammates are Naruto and the future antagonist, emo duck ass. Her teacher – or was it instructor? – is some guy with funky gray hair who had a collection of erotica that he liked to read within the vicinity of young, impressionable children. While I can't say I am impressed with this ridiculous set up, there are much worse things to come. Like, for example, Sakura is supposed the best medic, just second to the blond with the unlikeliest rack.

Though I could care less, I've seen many people either love or hate this character. Yet, like it or not, she is one of the most important characters in Naruto, due to the fact that she is a main character and main characters are hella significant even if most the the fanbase hates them.

I had a good amount of knowledge on Sakura, because I had way too much time on my hands when I was living in another life. It does give me an upper hand if I want to adapt to this world, but there is something that the universe have gravely miscalculated when it decided I should be "reincarnated" as her.

I did not want to be Haruno Sakura.

. . .

Since that day I found out I was Sakura, I took initiative in how I wanted to live my life.

At first, I felt guilty because this wasn't exactly my life, wasn't mine at all to begin with, as I wasn't the comic book's Haruno Sakura that fans loved and hated. But then, if the universe placed me into this girl's body, that meant I had either, a) replaced her, or b) became her, meaning that I would be Sakura, though with a different personality. I got over the strange guilt quickly, because I am living again, assuming the identity of a main character but it's not like I killed her, you know? I was here since the beginning (ew, I experienced my own birth), which meant that I am now a girl named Haruno Sakura, no matter how disgruntled I am to admit it.

One of the initiatives I took since that day was that I swore off dresses and begged my mother – it was easier to call her that, instead of constantly denying our relation – to take me clothes shopping with her. If you thought that I would be easily persuaded to change my mindset to refer to myself as a female now that I am actually a female, you are terribly mistaken and completely off the mark.

I had been living twenty years of my life as male, had been referring to myself as male and had my mindset fixed to that of a male's. To tell me to change this part of me, was like stealing my identity away. I was a guy through and through and you could not just waltz in and say, "dude, you need to wear a dress now because your new name and body".

I sure as hell won't be a girl, inside and out even though I was now equipped with the full equipment. The gender difference was going to be confusing, but I could live with it, because it is what makes me different. It is the line that separates me from the original Sakura and you can't just cut it off. I am firm with my decision.

Sadly, there are things that I won't be able to deny and avoid, like underwear and the monthly cycle, but on the positive side, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I made my mother buy me clothing that had zero cuteness and femininity in them. Sometimes, I would even solicit her to go to the boy's section, so I could pick out clothes when I could not find something that was more unisexual in the girl's section. The clothes were all dark colors, did not have any floral patterns or anything that screamed, "look, I am a girl!". My mother often gave me a questioning look, wondering how the hell did I become a tomboy overnight, but it's not like I could tell her that her daughter actually had the mind of a grown man. Geez. The only plausible reason I could give, was that boy's clothes were much more comfortable. Not exactly a lie, but not the full truth either.

As for my hair… well, I can't do anything about the color, because apparently, it was natural.

I have nothing against colors that were decided by the society as "feminine", but having natural cotton candy pink hair is a little hard to get used to. You have to understand that I used to have black hair and when I dyed the tips and only the tips of my hair in blue dye that could be easily washed off, my previous parents made a gigantic fuss out of it. It's a habit of mine to make my image as unassuming as possible to the public, so no one looks at me twice. It's going to be very hard to stay unnoticed with pink hair of all things, but then again, I now lived in a comic book/anime that had weirder hair colors. Hopefully they won't notice me when purple hair was the norm.

Though I can say that the hairstyle I have is acceptable for now. It isn't long, but it isn't short either. I can't ask for a boy cut even if I wanted to because my mother was already having fits of me constantly pestering her to buy non-girly clothing. I can't say that it'll go well if I ask, so this hairstyle will do.

The last thing is about the ninja career in this world. I don't like pain and death like any normal, sane human being. But I rather choose the bloody path than be cannon fodder. I was also uncertain whether another character would be able to replace the absence of Haruno Sakura if I choose to be civilian and have an ordinary job. Although how the world starts and end doesn't concern me much as the almighty beings who placed me here would have liked me to, I do carry the burden of knowledge.

Knowledge of being the main character and knowledge of being one of the people who are indispensable. Harsh, but it they were undisputable facts of the Naruto world.

As selfish as I want to be, I can't let Haruno Sakura not be a ninja. For the future to go smoothly, she has to be the one who is placed with Naruto and duck ass. For the sake of this world not crashing itself, she has to be the one who is part of the generation of rookies. For the sake of my moral conscious, she needs to be their teammate no matter how useless she was before the timeskip.

I would be constantly filled with guilt if I don't do it, so I had to do it.

A part of me says no, because I honestly do not want to die, especially in a gruesome way if you factor in the ninjas. A part of me says yes, because goddamn it all.

Have you seen how useless she was when she was first placed with their team? It's not like I'm calling her worthless because she's a girl aspiring to be a ninja, but because she's, or was, aspiring to be her broody teammate's wife when they were both twelve-ish, for god's sake. I am a laid back, go with the flow kind of guy, but that did not mean I do things half-assed. If you wanted to be something, another person couldn't hold you back by making you obsess over them. This was one of them, because I refuse to believe that she signed her own death warrant – even if it never happens, but being a ninja definitely raises your chances to die, like how dropping into an erupting volcano is a surefire way to die, no pun intended – just to get close to her crush.

I was not going to be that little girl who dreams of picture perfect fairy tale marriages and a cool, mysterious husband. If I was going to be a ninja, I will do my best to be the best. My physical gender and status was not going to hinder me.

I also will not marry duck ass. I confess that I skipped the war arc straight to the last few chapters and I was disappointed with the ending. I honestly thought that when Sakura fought against the puppet master after the timeskip, it was amazing because she finally, in a sense, grew up. She was strong and reliable, unlike the vain girl you knew in part one. After that, Sakura's development kept going downhill and she just had to end up with duck ass. Ugh.

There is also the major timeskip in the last chapter of Naruto. The future of the world was peaceful, yes, but what happened to the ninjas? If everyone was at peace with each other, there would be no need for ninjas. The ninja system should have been abolished when the villages that were at each others' throats decided to have a tea party together. I mean, if you think about it, the only enemies of ninjas, were each other and the demons. If they no longer want to kill each other, it only makes sense that a job that involves killing each other be gone forever.

It's confusing and also stupid. The conclusion sort of fucked up the entire point of the comic book having ninjas in the first place. If there was no war and only peace, they would've been farmers since the clan wars era. To me, personally the last arc sucked.

But, still, both options scare me. I didn't know what I wanted and I didn't know what needed to be done.

. . .

This world has shit career choices, I knew that. But I made up my mind and I was not going to back down. If I was already the main character, I was going to walk in their shoes. But I'd cheat, because I wouldn't attempt to be a carbon copy of them. I would still be me, despite the gender and body.

The career wasn't a choice I could make freely, I knew, but that didn't mean I couldn't be someone different if was obligated to go down this road.

I tugged my mother's pants. "Kaa-san," I say in my baby-ish five year old voice. She stares at me, waiting for me to speak. Her eyebrows are furrowed and I know that what I say next will definitely kill her in the inside. I did find out that she retired from the front lines for a solid reason. "I want to be a ninja."

So, Naruto world, you have a heroine, but not the one you wanted.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Please do review to tell me what you thought or give me a constructive review. They're always welcomed and appreciated. ^^

Thanks to Runa22694 (guest), Qoheleth and LeechPrincess for reviewing the previous chapter! Though, to Qoheleth, if you did not see my PM, can you elaborate on what your review meant?

Edit: Apparently, Qoheleth has informed me that the previous summary was rated above K (it had swear words) and the site's guidelines, under the general rules' section, number 1 says, "Entry title and summary must be rated K for all audience. No exceptions.", so the summary has been fixed. Thanks!